Danganronpa: Hope for the Hopeless/Chapter 3 - Class Trial

## Story

The elevator slowed down for the third time. Once more, I looked around and noticed that everyone’s breathing picked up ever so slightly as the elevator touched the ground. The most concerned of all appeared to be Yakawa and Wakuni though everyone more or less kept their composure and the Shoda brothers were no exception. Honestly though, the two couldn’t be blamed for their concerns even if they had freaked out under the circumstances.

When the elevator doors opened with a heavy metallic ring, we all wordlessly headed into the light provided by the entrance to the trial room. But while nobody said anything, we all looked at each other and the three largest targets for observation were myself, Wakuni, and Yakawa thanks to us all forming our own group of four with Senji who I knew didn’t trust Wakuni either. If I had to guess, they thought we wouldn't notice. But of course, we noticed most of the class taking glances at us.

It wasn’t until everyone stepped out of the elevator that Saeki finally broke the silence. “I guess this is it then. I don’t like what we have to work with but I think we’ll be able to pull through. I promise I won’t let you guys down this time.”

“Saeki, like I was saying before, we already know who the culprit is,” Machi said with a hint of irritation in her tone as she glanced over at Wakuni and boldly stepped forwards towards the door. “I don’t understand why everyone is so worried about this when the answer is right in front of us.”

“I already told you. I didn’t kill Eto and I didn’t try to kill Nishi,” Wakuni said in a rather indignant tone. “I wish you’d just believe me already.”

“Come to think of it, this does feel eerily similar to the first class trial with everyone ganging up on one suspect.” Koike chimed in with some hesitation in her tone. “I don’t want to make the same mistake, so if it's alright with everyone, could we go through the evidence first?”

“Koike is right. We can't just assume that it’s Wakuni,” Saeki agreed with a nod of agreement. And with that, she grabbed the left door handle and pulled the left door open for all of us to enter whether we wanted to or not. “Why don’t we just sort it out in the class trial where we put all of our facts together? After all, I think we all agree that Eto deserved better than this.”

At that, most of us nodded or made some gesture of agreement though Wakuni seemed reluctant to say anything. Likely to avoid drawing attention to himself. And then, we all marched into the actual class trial room. First went Sasori, then Machi, then Senji and Koike, then Tanabe, Sanda, and Sama, then I was wheeled in by Yakawa who followed me inside, and finally, Saeki came in with Wakuni and she almost seemed to be prodding him along when she did.

As the door closed behind us, Yakawa rolled me up to my podium. And from there, I stood up and looked around the room to observe the scenario. It was more or less the same as always in terms of shape and furniture. However, and rather unsurprisingly, I noticed two new greyed out pictures. One of Shiro’s face took the place where she formerly sat and one of Eto’s face took the place where she formerly sat. Both of course, had red X's over them.

As for the area itself, it was obvious that Monokuma really went all out to renovate the room. For starters, the floor of the new trial room was a black carpet with rubber theatre lights along the edge of the room and a grey metal center that occupied the space between the podiums and held a light blue projector light in the very center. It wasn’t obstructively bright, but it kept the area well lit enough. On top of that, the walls appears to be dark grey walls that were just over our heights and bore a stoplight in each corner to point towards the center and help illuminate the area. And as for the roof, it was no longer flat but rather, it was domed and lined with a solid picture of the cosmos that was being projected onto it by the projector in the middle of the room. Moreover, the stars were moving as though they were in real time.

“Don’t forget that you have a wheelchair that you can sit in if you get tired,” Yakawa offered as he took his spot to my right and everyone else took their podium positions as well. To be honest, I still felt a little tired, but I shrugged it off and shook my head as he continued. “Anyways, I won’t blame you if you can’t remember everything so if you need to take a break and sit down at any time, we can take over.”

I opened my mouth to respond just as I felt another headache, but before I could say or do anything, Monokuma spoke up from his chair. “Alright everyone, I bet you already know this, in fact, you better already no this, but I have tradition to uphold! One of you murdered Eto Uzuki and the rest of you need to figure out whodunnit and settle it by majority vote. If the majority figures it out who the blackened is, only the blackened will the punished. But if the majority is wrong, the blackened will earn the right to leave and everyone else will be punished. Now without further ado, it's time for class trial three to commence!”

“Right,” Sama slowly replied in an unamused tone before she looked at us and began. “So, you don't want us to throw around accusations so where should we start?”

“Hmm,” Saeki chimed in as she put her right hand to her chin in thought, “We usually seem to try to figure out the time and cause of death at some point. Perhaps we should start with that and build our case from there.”

“Fine by me,” Sasori agreed with a quick thumbs up with his right hand. Albeit, he wasn’t smiling about any of this for obvious reasons.

The rest of the class gave their own murmurs of agreement. And with that, they looked at each other. Most looked at Yakawa, but Koike looked at Senji and Tanabe looked at me as though we knew the answer for whatever reason. Which I supposed we knew an estimate at least, but that was beside the point.

“In that case, what do we know about her time of death?” Koike asked as she rested her arms on the podium.

“Well, the Monokuma file gives us nothing,” Senji remarked with a frown and disdain in his voice at the subject. “However, if Yakawa is right which I believe he is, then Eto almost certainly died between 11:30pm and 12:30am last night.”

“I’m definitely right,” Yakawa refuted as he crossed his arms. “Eto died between 11:30pm and 12:30am just like Senji said. I hate to say it, but that’s about as much as I know. I can’t narrow the time down any further which means any alibis will have to account for that entire hour.”

“I’m beginning to wonder about that,” Sanda remarked as he tapped his podium with his right pointer finger. “Nevertheless, I had better wait to explain myself till later. So in the meantime, assuming Yakawa is telling the truth, does anyone know the cause of death?”

“Well-” Wakuni interrupted in what sounded like a genuinely confused tone, “couldn’t she have just frozen to death?”

“I thought about that but no,” Yakawa explained, “If she had been left out to freeze to death, then I doubt she could have left as much blood as she did. Not to mention that her injuries look almost as old of her death which means she had to have been killed by a faster cause. The only question is what.”

The room stayed silent for a good ten seconds as we all looked at each other. That was the questioned that baffled us all before the investigation and it still troubled us now. Of course I knew that Senji had a theory but we didn’t know for sure. And to make matters worse, I had a feeling that nobody would be willing to proceed before we at least gave a good attempt to answer the question. Naturally, I put my hand to my chin in thought. After a few seconds, I even opened my mouth. However, I ultimately closed it and kept quiet.

Saeki must have picked up on my attitude because she broke the silence with a happier but still displeased tone in her voice. “Something tells me that Nishi has another theory.”

Of course, that was more than enough for everyone to look over at me expectantly for some sort of answer. Though the exceptions were Koike and Senji who had the excuse of already knowing what I was going to say. In fact, they suggested it. I myself wasn’t sure, but at this point, I knew that I had to answer.

“Well,” I slowly began as I looked around the room. “It’s just a theory and in order to explain it, I need Yakawa to tell me whether or not he found any other marks on Eto’s body that may have led to her death.”

“I didn’t find anything that you don’t already know about Nishi,” Yakawa said as he shook his head and sighed. “Just thinking about it gives me a headache. I know for a fact that she couldn’t have been shot to death but don’t know what did it.”

“It's possible that the snow covered the blood up,” Sasori suggested as helpfully as he could. “I mean, I think it snowed a lot outside last night. It even woke me up at one point.”

“I don’t think so,” I cut in. “I was actually going to say that I think Eto was poisoned or at least drugged. Senji suggested it earlier and when he did, he mentioned that there was a drug called Lullaby-7 that supposedly does not leave evidence of it being the cause of death behind. I’ve seen it before so I believe that Senji might be right about this.”

“Oh I remember seeing that,” Tanabe said quietly albeit as his eyes almost lit up with realization. At that, he glanced over at Monokuma. “Monokuma, you wouldn’t lie to us about the properties of the poisons you gave us would you?”

“You know, that accusation alone makes me not want to tell you,” Monokuma said as he narrowed his right eye at Tanabe. Thankfully though, he returned to his normal attitude shortly after. “But in the name of a fair trial, I’ll give you this one. No, I have not lied about any of the poisons that I have given you. And for future references, when I tell you that something can or can’t do something, I’m telling the truth. So stop accusing me of lying.”

“I see,” I said with a quick nod before I gave an unamused look at him. To be honest, I was happy that he gave us this, but it wasn’t happy enough about it to offset the fact that I was nearly murdered because of his motive. “Since Yakawa is unable to think of any other means of killing Eto without leaving a trace, I think we can say with certainty that she was poisoned by either lullaby-7 or a drug with similar properties. I haven’t found any others though so I believe it’s lullaby-7.”

“In that case, ” Sama began as she eyed Yakawa in what almost looked like suspicion though he didn’t notice, “We have our approximate time and cause of death. Does anyone disagree?”

*(Yeesh, everyone seems suspicion of Yakawa’s information. I thought it was Wakuni that they found suspicious.)*

“You know, I would appreciate it if you stopped second guessing my brother,” Wakuni said with a scowl. “Neither of us have done anything to deserve this treatment from you people. But Yakawa isn’t even a suspect.”

“Calm down brother,” Yakawa warned with a glance glance over at Wakuni. “We’ll deal with these accusations when the time comes. For now we need to lay out all the facts first.” He looked at the rest of the group. “So does anyone protest our findings?”

I turned out that I had plenty of time to come to a conclusion because nobody refuted Sama. Instead, everyone remained silent long enough for me to connect the dots and realize that they might have suspected Yakawa to be helping his brother. Which of course, was a reasonable enough assumption considering that Yakawa likely wouldn’t want to see his brother executed even if Wakuni was the culprit.

“Well then, I assume that everyone here is in agreement about the time and cause of death,” Senji surmised calmly before taking a quick sigh of his own, “In that case, I believe the next best thing to do is to establish alibis. Is there anyone here who could not have killed Eto between 11:30 and 12:30.”

“Well-” Tanabe began as he traced the podium with his right pointer finger. “One of my tarantulas got loose for real this time. I looked everywhere around my room for it but I couldn't find it.”

“Okay, first off, we didn’t need to know that,” Sama deadpanned. “And second, there’s no one to confirm your alibi.”

*(Wait-)*

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them once more as I fought back the throbbing pain in my head. In spite of my best efforts, it wasn’t doing very well. I was standing up and functioning just fine, but it was tiring to say the least.

“I can’t confirm that he has an alibi but I can confirm that he is telling the truth. Does that help?” I asked as I braced myself against the podium. “So far from what I gather, we haven’t found any animals in the wild so it had to come from Tanabe’s room and I can show you the picture if you want.”

“I’m afraid that won’t help Nishi. Even if there was a dead spider at the observatory, it could have been planted.” Sasori surmised as he drew his own sigh. At the same time, he glanced at Tanabe who just frowned back at him. “I’m not saying you would Tanabe, I’m just saying that we can’t prove that you wouldn’t.”

“I’m afraid we’re getting sidetracked,” Saeki interrupted. “It’s regrettable, but we can’t prove Tanabe’s alibi. So, is there anyone here who does have an alibi that we can prove.”

Unsurprisingly, the room once more became quiet as people looked around the room at each other almost expectantly. In fact, Sama was even counting her fingers at the time. But one by one, everyone seemed to look away in what I guessed was disappointment. It culminated in me shaking my head in disappointment as well.

*(Sorry Eto, you deserved better than this.)*

“Well,” Senji said as he made a single meticulous glance around the room. “It appears as though none of us can confirm our whereabouts. Perhaps it would be best if we looked at other evidence.”

“Yeah-,” Koike agreed with a quick nod and then a brief frown. If I were not mistaken, she almost looked as if she were starting to get worried about the lack of alibis. And to be fair, the concern creeped into the back of my own mind as well. “So, what’s next Senji?”

“Does it matter? We already know it was Wakuni,” Machi argued as she crossed her arms and glared at Wakuni. This earned her a returning glare from him as well. “Lets face it, Wakuni would have no reason to try and shoot Nishi if it weren’t him.”

“I did not kill Eto,” Wakuni protested once again.

“We still have yet to determine whether or not it was actually Wakuni who shot at Nishi,” Senji argued with just a hint of a warning in his tone as he turned to face Machi.

“How about we figure that out then,” I offered in an attempt to stop the trial from breaking down into a fight though I subconsciously eyed Wakuni with a little bit of suspicion in the back of my mind as I did. “We’re stuck in a circular argument and it doesn’t seem like we’ll be able to figure anything out until we clear up whether or not it was Wakuni who attacked me.”

“I agree. Besides, it sounds almost like Nishi’s assailant and Eto’s killer are the same person,” Sama said as he expression softened up and she adopted a more serious tone. Like me, she also eyed Wakuni. But after that, she turned to me. “I’m real sorry to hear about the attempt on your life by the way Nishi. You should get plenty of rest once this is over.”

“Sama is right,” Saeki agreed with an ever so brief smile of what I guessed was approval. “We’re here for Eto, but we also wish you well Nishi. And we want to see you get better.”

“Get well soon Nishi,” Koike chimed in.

“Thanks guys-” I began as a brief smile crept onto my face as well in spite of the image of my attacker flashing once more through my memory and sending a chill down my spine. Before I could continue however, I was interrupted.

“Sorry to burst your bubble,” Sanda began reluctantly and looking away from the group all the while. “But how do we even know that the murder and the assault on Nishi are connected? For all we know, Wakuni could have just tried to take advantage of the situation.”

*(But I think the assailant has to be the killer.)*

At that, more silence followed. And at the same time, everyone started to look around a little faster as expressions of what looked like increasing concern started to creep up on their faces. If I had to guess, it was because we were five minutes in to the trial and we had been stumped three times. No wonder everyone was probably starting to be nervous. Meanwhile, I closed my searched my memory for some link between the two. And luckily enough, I found something.

“Hey guys, I think I have something,” I replied. As soon as I did, at least three people in the group visibly relaxed. I frowned as they did. “My assailant has to be the culprit because both Eto’s killer and the person who attacked me used the same kind of bow and arrows. Yakawa, do you still have that slide you showed me?”

Yakawa hesitated, but as everyone turned to him, he sighed and pulled out his ElectroID. Then, he reluctantly flicked to the image of the crossbow that was found in the snow, showed it to the class, and sighed.

“I think Nishi is on the something,” Yakawa admitted as he put his ElectroID away a little too quickly for his own good. “According to Koike and Senji’s reports, the arrows at both crime scenes are identical. I can personally attest that there’s only one crossbow that can fire that kind of arrow here and and well, we found it by the cliff facing the lift at the summit shortly after Nishi was attacked.”

I looked at Yakawa and bit my lip. From Yakawa’s tone, it was obvious that he wouldn’t have told us if he didn’t know that this information was necessary. And quite frankly, the reason why he wouldn't have was obvious. As soon as Yakawa finished, more than a few of us took glances at Wakuni. And in response, Wakuni looked away.

*(Sorry Yakawa, it was necessary.)*

Regardless, Sasori took the opportunity to speak up. “To add to what Yakawa said, since the two weapons used appear to be the same model of crossbow, Nishi’s attacker couldn’t just imitate the culprit if he or she returned the crossbow because they wouldn't know ahead of time which crossbow and arrows to use. And they also wouldn’t be able to reach the lodge in time to use it to attack her since the lift got stuck.”

“Well, when you put it that way,” Koike delicately began with what sounded like cautious optimism in her tone. “It sounds like the killer has to be the same person who attacked Nishi. That means we can probably cross a lot of people off the pool of suspects.”

Everyone more or less nodded in agreement and as I looked around, I noticed Machi being the next person to visibly relax. However, Wakuni and Yakawa both tensed up for what was obviously the impending murder accusation.

“Speaking of which,” Sanda cut in calmly enough despite the circumstances. “Koike, I’ve been wondering what exactly happened up there. Could you and Nishi? Explain what happened after the lift got stuck?”

I took a deep breath and nodded as the memory of it came back to me. Not that it was difficult to remember the event since it seemed to be ingrained into my memory. Still, I looked over at both the Shoda brothers knowing full well that this wouldn’t bode well for either of them and looked away. It wasn’t pleasant, but I wasn’t going to hesitate. After all, it had to be done and for all I knew, Wakuni might actually be the culprit.

“It started normally for us even after the lift broke down except Machi had me take over searching the weather station while she fixed the lift. Long story short, I went there, found a bunch of things to indicate that Eto was held there and that there was a struggle such as loose duct tape attached to an overturned chair which was right next to a blindfold, a broken coffee machine, glass on the floor, and books missing from the bookshelf. Anyways, I just came to a realization when an arrow shot through the window and landed in front of my face. I looked out the window and I saw someone wearing Wakuni’s jacket and a red handkerchief to cover his face.” I began. Towards the end, I insisted on the word someone.

Not that it did too much help as it caused more than a few people to look Wakuni’s way. A few of which even crossed their arms. That said, the trial was going to biased from the start and Wakuni might very well be the killer even if I didn’t feel comfortable with just voting immediately and not examining the evidence first.

“It's pretty straightforward after that. I bolted out the door only to have it slammed in my face and that’s how I got hurt. The culprit, blocked the way, and I escaped though not before he drugged me.” I said as the memory flashed through my mind once more and along with it, a headache. I put my right hand to my forehead and rubbed it. “Anyways, I ran away and actually took a shortcut the the assailant used to reach me before I passed out on another trail.”

Senji nodded plainly at my statement. “Everything that Nishi said is correct. Both Koike and I found Nishi’s unconscious body while we searched the trails and we did notice someone head towards her that matched the description that Nishi gave. I gave chase, found evidence of everything that Nishi said, and ultimately lost track of the assailant by the cliffside facing the waypoint station. And I would like to affirm that Wakuni is not necessary the killer or Nishi’s attacker, but regrettably he is my prime suspect.”

“Well, when you put it that way, it makes sense to believe that Wakuni did it,” Sasori agreed with a quick nod and a frown to match the one that Senji had when he spoke up. “This isn’t like the first class trial. Coats have no backups that I am aware of. And since I doubt anyone could steal Wakuni’s coat from out in the cold without his noticing, that only leaves one last possibility.”

“Wait-” I interrupted as I let go of my forehead and held up my right hand to stop him from continuing. I knew that that was wrong on multiple accounts and luckily, by the time everyone turned to me, I remembered why. “There actually are a few spare coats hanging around such as the ones at the waypoint station. Monokuma mentioned earlier that he hadn’t installed a locker system yet so any male student could get access to Wakuni’s coat ahead of time. Additionally, I noticed that both Yakawa and Wakuni had a copy of each other’s coats in their lockers when we were searching for Eto.”

“Nishi is telling the truth,” Yakawa said in a rather insistent tone as he leaned forward and braced the podium. “If some of you remember, I switched coats with Wakuni the night of the murder. Well, when we switched back during the search, we found out that we were given a spare of our own coats.”

That more or less made the group stop and murmur to each other. I glanced at Yakawa and the thought crept into my mind that Yakawa was going to make himself look really suspicious soon, but a part of me had a feeling that he wouldn’t care even if he did know how suspicious he was starting to look so long as he got his brother acquitted.

As soon as I finished that train of thought, Senji looked over his right shoulder and broke the silence. “Monokuma, your policy could have caused us to prematurely vote for Wakuni. I have yet to decide if he’s innocent or not, but this is not an impartial trial. What is the meaning of this?”

“Oh that,” Monokuma said as he rubbed the back of his head with his right paw. “School staff policy says that every student must have their own jacket available for them at all times. Except during emergency situations of course. So naturally, I gave them each an extra jacket so that they could have one. Anyways, you figured it out so it's not like I have to feel guilty about it.”

“Unbelievable,” Wakuni muttered under his breath before he turned to address the class. “Do you get it now? Anyone who knows how to use a crossbow could have imitated me. I didn’t attack Nishi or kill Eto!”

“Wakuni has a valid argument,” Senji chimed in once more reverting to his calm and collective demeanor. “For example, and I only mean this as an example, Yakawa is almost a good shot with that crossbow. Not as good as Wakuni, but as you may have noticed, the arrow missed. Again, this is an example but-”

“Oh I get it,” Machi interrupted as her eyes went wide with what I could only imagine was shock and she visibly relented on Wakuni. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but thank you Nishi. All this time I though Wakuni did it when in reality it was his brother.”

“No!” Wakuni butted in as he waved his hands around frantically as if to try and get everyone’s attention. “I wasn’t saying that it was my brother! There’s absolutely no way that it could have been Yakawa!”

“I definitely did not kill Eto,” Yakawa said in an earnest tone before frowning. “I’m also disgusted that you would even begin to think that I would try to frame my own brother of killing someone. Seriously guys?”

“Sorry to say Wakuni, but I see no reason why Yakawa could not have done it,” Sasori butted in again. This time, he crossed his arms. “In fact, I believe that Yakawa might have to be the culprit here. He has demonstrated that he knows how to use a crossed but you have yet to show any medical expertise. I doubt that Wakuni could have discerned how the Lullaby-7 serum would have worked.”

“Actually, Yakawa is not necessary the culprit either,” I interrupted. Luckily, I didn't have to wrack my brain to answer this question. “I remember seeing instructions on the container when the third area of the storage room opened up. On top of that, Senji was able to describe the effects of Lullaby-7 when Koike and I asked him. Anyone could have read the instructions and used it.”

“Nishi is correct,” Senji remarked with a quick nod. “Anyone could have read the label on the back of a Lullaby-7 container. Besides that, it was clearly placed on the most lethal shelf in the container from which it was found right next to concentrated cyanide. I do not believe that it would be too difficult to deduce the lethality of the drug. Point being, you can’t pin the murder of Yakawa just because of the murder weapon.”

At that, there was silence. People no longer stared or scowled, but most of them either scratched their heads and rubbed their chins for a few brief moments. Most likely because Senji had a point and now from most people’s perspectives, they now had half a chance of guessing incorrectly. In fact, tension almost seemed to physically rise in the room and the only people who seemed unphased were Senji and Koike.

“Perhaps we should pull back on the brothers,” Tanabe suggested in his calm, quiet, tone. “At least, we need to look at other evidence before we do any voting. Remember, I think I have to remind what happens if-”

“If we get it wrong?” Machi guessed flatly and almost dismissed the phrase with the wave of her left hand. “Do you always have say that Tanabe? I think we know by now what will happen if we turn out to be wrong.”

“Machi,” Saeki hummed with a hint of warning in her undertone. “Tanabe is probably just nervous about the trial. We can’t blame him for wanting to be cautious. Besides, I still don’t that we should be accusing them this early.”

“Saeki, with all due respect we should be accusing them. I’m not trying to spite anyone. It’s just that the evidence points to them,” Machi replied as narrowed her eyes at Saeki and maintained her deadpan expression. “Remember when Koike said we can cross a lot more people off the list of suspects since we know that the murder and the attack of Nishi are related? Well, I was busy conducting repairs on the lift and would have had to have passed Yakawa to attack Nishi, Nishi obviously couldn’t have attacked herself, Senji and Koike were with each other the whole time so neither of them could have done it, and Sasori, Sama, Tanabe, Sanda, and you yourself Saeki were all trapped on the lift.”

“Ah, I get it. By process of elimination, Wakuni and Yakawa are the only two left,” Sanda chimed in almost too happily. Immediately after he said it though, he frowned. “That really sucks for whichever one of them did it though. It probably sucks for the other one too since they’re brother is next on the chopping block.”

“Neither of us did it,” Yakawa replied rather insistently for obvious reasons. He took a few deep breaths but otherwise forced himself to keep calm. “I know for a fact that I didn't do it. And I know just as well that brother is not a killer.”

“Yeah!,” Wakuni agreed with a scowl and a clenched right fist which he held in the air before us. “How many times to we have to say it before you believe us? Yakawa pledged to do the exact opposite of you accused him of and I don’t take kindly to your defaming him. And I didn’t do it either so get off our backs about it!”

“Well, you two are literally the only people who do not have alibis during the time in question,” Sasori interrupted with a deep sigh. “If you could prove that either of you are innocent, it might be a different story. But as things stand-”

“Well, maybe I can prove it!” Wakuni shouted back. At that, everyone looked at him with expressions of what I could only assume was shock. Even I raised on eyebrow in surprise. But even as I did, I saw Wakuni metaphorically deflate and rub the back of his head with his right hand. “Well- um, how is this for proof for starters? I am the Super High School Level Marksmen. I got into Hope’s Peak Academy for my ability to hit targets accurately. With that in mind, do you really think that I would have missed Nishi?”

I winced as he said that and I couldn’t help but picture myself dead in the weather station. But at the same time, I looked around. Nobody appeared to be buying it based on the expressions that they had on their faces. Really, that was probably for the better to because if they did, they would almost certainly vote for Yakawa on a false pretense. Though just to be safe, I decided to clear up the falseness of that pretense.

“I’m going to have to disagree with that,” I said as I shook my head. “Psychologically speaking, the act of murder messes with the behaviors and every day functions of people. In short, people are generally dispositioned not to want to murder other people. So, if you were to try and shoot me Wakuni, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to believe that your aim was thrown by subconscious guilt.”

As soon as I finished, Yakawa frowned at me, leaned over to me, and whispered. “Nishi, what are you doing? Wakuni isn’t the person who attacked you.”

“The group didn’t believe him anyways. And if they did, they would all vote for you the moment his name was cleared. You two are the only people without alibis so what do you think is going to happen?” I defended quietly and politely, but firmly. “Besides, I haven’t entirely ruled either of you out for suspicion. I understand that this must hurt, but if I’m going to acquit either of you, it has to be based on solid evidence.”

“If I may say, I do not believe that pressing either of them is going to narrow down our scope of suspects to any one person,” Senji chimed in as he put his right hand on his chin. He raised his right eyebrow when Yakawa returned to his previous position, shook his head, and took a few deep breaths, but he didn’t comment on it. “Perhaps it would be beneficial to look at other aspects of the crime scene?”

*(Like what?)*

I bit my lip and considered what might be the best aspect of the crime to talk about next. But before I could think of anything, Koike spoke up. “Actually, I think I may have thought of an alibi for the both of them. See, Wakuni was exploring the trails near the lift and Yakawa was guarding Eto’s body near the crossroads. So in order to attack Nishi, Wakuni would also have had to pass by Yakawa just like Machi. And there is no way that Yakawa could have risked leaving his post to attack Nishi or have returned to his own post in time to avoid suspicion when Senji and I went to get help for Nishi.”

That caused silence throughout the group and even I considered whether or not Koike was right. Leaving out the possibility of accomplices, we still didn’t know whether or not Wakuni could have used that makeshift trail to pass Yakawa unnoticed. Additionally, I wasn’t sure that Yakawa couldn’t have returned to his post like Koike said. That said, I didn’t know what transpired while I was unconscious. And when I looked over at Senji, he didn’t seem to disagree with any of it. So, Koike must have been right.

“Don’t be so certain,” Machi said to break to the silence. Then, she pointed her right pointer finger at the two brothers. “Either of them could still have done it. If anyone is likely to have an accomplice, it would one of them. I know for a fact that I’d die for my sister back home so we have to at least consider that they’d be willing to do the same. Besides, Wakuni could have snuck past him at any point if he stepped away from the crime scene.”

“I guess the question is then whether or not he stepped away from the scene of the first crime,” Tanabe chimed in quietly once more. “Yakawa, I hate to ask this, but I think it’s necessary. Did you ever leave the crime scene for even just a moment?”

At that, all eyes turned towards Yakawa. In response, he drew a deep sigh and looked away from the group. “Yes, I hate to say it but I did step away from the crime scene. I thought I saw an arrow glance off a rock near the cliff and I went to check it out but it turned out to be nothing. Nishi knows about it. You can ask her.”

“So it would appear as though Wakuni’s alibi isn’t as strong as we initially thought,” Sanda remarked. “Sorry Wakuni, but you have to know that this doesn’t bode well for you.”

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” Wakuni defended while he held his left hand out as if to beg. “I did not kill Eto. And I did not attack Nishi. What do I have to do to make you believe that i’m innocent?”

In spite of what Wakuni said, everyone’s eyes turned towards me. I drew a deep sigh and considered the consequences of explaining everything. If I told them the truth, everyone would revert right back to accusing Wakuni even though we had no concrete evidence to prove which if either of the brothers actually attacked me. If I told the truth, I would relinquish any chance I had to figure out if anyone other than the two brothers could have done it. Moreover, the vote would be decided on whether or not we determined that one of them was an accomplice. All of course, because Wakuni would have lost his alibi. Suffice to say, even though my headache was distracting, I knew I couldn't let that happen.

*(If I concede here, then I’ll lose any chance of proving that it could have been anyone other than Wakuni or Yakawa. I can alway backtrack to them if I turn out to be wrong, but for now, I guess I have to lie again.)*

“Yakawa is right,” I admitted with a grim nod. “That said, there is no way that Wakuni could have snuck past the crossroads while Yakawa was distracted. You see, before Yakawa left the crime scene, he saw me heading there and asked me to stay and guard Eto. We all know that she deserved more respect than she got so I was happy to comply. And more importantly, I waited for Yakawa to return before I left to the weather station so everyone was there at all times. And uh- sorry Machi, I was trying to get there as soon as I could but I couldn’t let anyone tamper with Eto. It just wouldn't be right.”

After that, I bit my lip and waited to see if everyone believed me. Of course, I knew that Yakawa knew I was lying and that he could contradict me at any second. But, I supposed that he knew that that would not help his case because he kept quiet. And when everyone accepted my lie, I exhaled with relief.

“Hmm,” Machi said before she crossed her arms. “Well, I suppose I can respect that. Anyways, I concede. Unless Wakuni and Yakawa are working together, then there is no way that either of them could have attacked Nishi. Though if you’re right, it does raise some questions like who the heck could have done it.”

“That’s the understatement of the year,” Sama remarked, “It makes me inclined to believe that one of them is an accomplice-”

“But we can’t prove or deny that,” I asserted. “At least, not until we find something that neither of them could have done. And until we know for sure, we have to keep examining the evidence for all of our sakes.”

“In that case, we should all consider everything that the culprit would have had to have done,” Saeki began as she raised to left pointer finger to her chin. “I don’t know about you, but I am willing to bet that at least some of us would want to know how the culprit got their weapons and clothing up to the summit. After all, even if we assume that Wakuni or Yakawa attacked Nishi, neither of them carried a weapon up to the summit during the search.”

*(Good question Saeki.)*

Once more, I tried to remember everything that happened over the course of the murder. Including of course, the timeline, the search, and the attack that I felt like would never be erased from my memory. Luckily, the answer came to my mind easily enough and I gave a weary smile to her.

“I got it,” I replied. Though after that, my smile dropped. “Unfortunately, any one of us could have done it. The coat, crossbow, and arrows could have been obtained ahead of time from the archery room and waypoint station if necessary. They could have dropped them both off any time the night before we discovered the body. Yakawa, do you still have that picture of where the cliff where the crossbow was found?”

Yakawa nodded, pulled out his ElectroID, swiped through the thing once more, and held out the picture of the picture of the cliff. Like before, there was a rock that stood facing inward from the cliff with a distinct ring pattern on it. This time however, Yakawa was definitely less nervous to show everyone the picture.

“I’m going to go ahead and guess that the murder weapon was stored here the night of the murder. Same goes for the coats if the Shoda brothers are innocent which I believe they may very well be.” I said as Yakawa put his ElectroID away. I meant it too. As wasn’t ready to cross them off my list, but I believe their innocence was a possibility at this point. “Furthermore, it had to have happened last night before the morning announcement since nobody was seen carrying a weapon up to the summit during the search for Eto.”

“Okay then. In that case, it sounds like we’re more or less back to where we started,” Sama remarked without so much as an attempt to hide her disappointment. “And since we can’t prove anyone’s guilt, I guess we’re back to the drawing board.”

“Well, I may have an idea for what to examine next. That is, if no one has any better suggestions,” Senji calmly remarked before turning to address me. “Nishi, you mentioned that before you were attacked, you came to a realization. Would you please explain to us what that realization was?”

“Well-,” I hesitantly explained as I tried to retrace my steps. I hadn’t put much thought into it, but it was at that moment that I realized that my train of thought was completely derailed my train of thought. So, I sighed and continued. “To be honest, I can’t remember. I remember it being important and I remember thinking how odd it was that the culprit preserved the location where Eto was supposedly held when he or she tampered with everything else, but my train of thought was derailed after that.”

As I expected, most of the group showed surprise to that. Sasori even commented on it. “I am not going to lie. If you really can’t remember, that is unfortunate. And you said it was important to the case Nishi?”

“Crucial,” I confirmed with a nod and no attempt to hide my disappointment. As to be expected, most of my classmates visibly looked troubled by my response.

“Well, let’s not give up,” Senji chimed in with what sounded like an attempt to cheer everyone up. “Just because Nishi’s train of thought was derailed doesn’t mean she can’t figure it out again. I believe we can figure it out if we focus on what we know about the weather station. For a start, I noticed that a few sections on the bookshelf were missing. Nishi, did you say that it was like that before the attack?”

I just silently nodded as I mentally went through my search of the weather station in order to try and recreate whatever I had figured out. Senji was right of course, I did remember that books were missing from the bookshelf. In fact, that explained the books that I had found on the joist earlier so they likely came from said weather station. But that wasn’t what I was trying to remember.

“How about the overturned chair you mentioned earlier? I remember seeing swivel chairs on my first visit there and you said there was duct tape attached to one,” Sasori asked with a hint of optimism in his voice. “Could what you’re trying to remember be that Eto was tied to it?”

“I think that’s kind of obvious for Nishi to have forgotten about. Besides, it’s not even related to the fact that the culprit preserved the crime scene,” Machi retorted dryly and dismissed what Sasori said with a wave. After that, she turned to me. “How about the fact that when I saw the coffee machine during my search of the weather station, it’s clock was stuck on 12:42?”

I don’t know why. It may have been Machi’s demanding tone, the coffee machine, or the fact that it was the last straw, but that was it. My eyes widened in recollection at that and Machi seemed to even draw a satisfied smile when she and the other noticed.

“That’s it Machi!” I admitted with a little too much joy in my tone for my own good. However, I took a deep breath and calmed down fairly quickly after that. “What I was trying to remember was that there wasn’t a struggle in that room. The culprit staged the crime scene after the murder hence the clock showing 12:42am when Eto was murdered between 11:30pm and 12:30am. I believe that Eto was actually held in the dining hall. Plus, the crime makes a lot more sense that way.”

“I’m sorry to say but I hardly see how the crime makes any more sense that way. How do you get Eto being held in the dining hall from a clock reading 12:42?” Sanda asked as he looked at the ground and shook his head. “Besides that. What your saying is impossible. Eto’s footprints came from the weather station, not from the lounge.”

“I actually considered that. Senji, Koike, remember when you both remarked how strange it was that Eto and Eto’s footprints showed when I met you on the way to the weather station?” I asked. At that, Senji nodded and Machi’s eyes narrowed as if to show how disappointed she was disappointed with all of my stops on the way to the weather station. Nonetheless, I continued. “Well, the weather last night was a blizzard. So all the footprints should have been covered up. Unless of course, the culprit made those footprints and salted them to prevent snow from covering them.”

At that, I crossed my arms and waited for the realization to sink in to the rest of the group. Sure enough it did and Tanabe spoke up. “That does make a surprising amount of sense. In fact, the culprit could have simply used his own boots to leave footprints. After all, I believe our boots all leave the same tracks in the snow.”

“I can definitely believe that,” Wakuni agreed with a quick nod. “Although, the one thing I don’t understand is how that makes the crime make any sense than it does now. Why wouldn’t the culprit just hold Eto captive in the weather station? Or why not just kill her wherever he found her?”

“Well-” I began as I drew a deep breath. “This is probably going to unnerve some of you, but I believe that Eto was never the intended victim. I found evidence in the dining room that Eto may have accidentally walked in on a setup for a different murder attempt. One with me and Koike as the intended victims.”

As soon as I finished, I looked over at Koike. Unsurprisingly, she bit her lip and gripped her podium with a white knuckled grip as she appeared to fight back a shudder. To be honest, I couldn't blame her. The revelation that we were going to be murdered was not one that I took lightly when I found out either. So, I didn't think anything of it when a few beads of sweat dripped down her face.

“Right, what exactly did you find there?” Yakawa asked as he scratched the back of his head with his left hand. “I mean other than the missing salt that we both figured out was taken earlier?”

“It was actually right over our heads,” I remarked as I pulled out my own ElectroID, turned it on, tapped the camera icon, and swiped through the pictures to find the one I took from the joist. After that, I turned my ElectroID around and held it out for the group to see. “As you can see, there are two wet spots and two strings. One string line on top of each book stack which happens to be comprised of books from the weather station, and two wet stains on joists not too far from the ones that have the books on them. As you can see from the dead spider, its poison. And when I checked their trajectories in relation to the curtains, I found that two of the paths intersect over me and Koike.”

I exhaled and drew another pause to catch my breath. All the while, I took the opportunity to look across the room to see that everyone was following me. It seemed like they were except for Tanabe who showed a clearly visible frown when I mentioned the dead spider which, if I had to guess, belonged to him. He didn’t look worried, but he looked disappointed with my discovery to say the least.

“Cristobal-” Tanabe muttered under his breath.

“Cristobal?” Wakuni critiqued in a tone that almost made it sound as if he were being rhetorical. He looked away from Tanabe shortly after so if I had to guess, he was being rhetorical. “You named your spiders?”

“Yes, Cristobal was a Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula. Obviously, his death isn't anywhere near as tragic as one of ours would be, but it does indicate a failure on my part and it doesn’t make this day any better,” Tanabe said as he put his right hand on his forehead and ignore Wakuni’s cues. After that, he paused. “I, uh, this makes me look suspicious doesn’t it?”

“Under most circumstances, it would,” Saeki agreed with a quick nod. “But you were honest with us from the start about losing him and besides, you have an alibi for the time that Nishi was attacked. I know because I was there.”

“Yeah, it was so cold,” Tanabe said once more in a quiet tone as he stood up, looked away, and tried to regain his posture. After that, he shivered. Probably at the memory of it. “I know you guys up top didn’t experience the windchill like us, but it was bad.”

“Regardless,” Senji remarked with a quick glance at Tanabe. “I think we are getting off track. We need to figure out how the culprit would gain access to the strings so that he could drip feed poison the his intended victims. And we also need to figure out which curtain that he was going to use.”

“Way ahead of you Senji,” I said as I turned my ElectroID around, flipped back a few pictures, and turned it around to show the group one of the curtain pictures. Namely, the ones with the strings attached to the curtain. “As you can see, I noticed two curtains that showed signs of tampering. Oh, and I also found an extra piece of duct tape in the trash bin which I think further indicates that Eto was duct taped to a chair in the dining room since those chairs have four legs. I think the culprit bound her wrists to each arm of the chair and her legs to the two front legs of the chair. I- I just hope she was unconscious when she died.”

With that, I flicked the screen on my ElectroID to show the group the picture of the duct tape that I found in the trash. Sure enough, an almost solemn silence followed. But nobody contested what I found. So, I simply turned my ElectroID off and put it back in my pocket when I was done.

“I agree on all accounts,” Saeki interrupted. After that, she sighed and looked away with a frown. “Poor Eto deserved better than this. She probably trusted everyone here. I know for a fact that at the very least, all she wanted was to befriend everyone.”

“Y-yeah,” Koike said as she forced herself to look up at us even though her voice still cracked. If I had to guess, she was still recovering from the revelation that someone tried to kill her. “Eto deserved better than this. That’s why we have to figure out who did this.”

“I can certainly agree with that sentiment.” Wakuni said with a quick sigh. “Speaking of which, What is next on our agenda?”

“Figuring out where the curtains are located,” I said without missing a beat. “But in order to do that, I need Senji to show everyone his seating planner if he has a picture of it.”

“Oh,I can do better than just a picture Nishi. I picked up the planner this morning and I never let go of it.” Senji remarked as a brief smile crept across his face in spite of everything. Without hesitation, he pulled a piece of paper out of his back pocket, slowly unrolled it, and unveiled it to the crowd. “For those of you who can’t remember, Nishi, Yakawa, Wakuni, Sama were going to sit in the front middle table, Eto, Saeki, Machi, and Sanda were going to sit at the left middle table, Koike and I were going to sit in the back right table, Sasori was to sit in the far back left table, and Tanabe was going to sit in the front most right table.”

“Thank you Senji,” I replied as he gave a nod of what I guess was acknowledgement and I felt another wave of dull pain from my headache. I fought it back. “So, the curtain I showed you is very close to Senji’s and Koike’s table but there is another one which is near Sasori’s table which has signs of formerly having a string attached to it.”

“Hold on a second,” Sasori butted in as Senji put his planner back where he retrieved it. “Could someone actually have drip fed poison from a string like that? The odds that someone could just do that seem kind of far fetched.”

“It’s not that far fetched,” Sanda butted in with what looked like a reminiscent smile. “I used that technique to do an endless water cup trick once. Obviously with water instead of poison. It's simple really, just jostle the string a little and water will follow gravity and flow down the string.”

“Dude, I hate to break it to you-” Wakuni deadpanned with his arms crossed and an unamused expression across his face. “but if you didn’t have an alibi, you would be so suspicious for saying that right now.”

“Wakuni,” Yakawa began with an immediate sigh. “First off, he does have an alibi. And second, I hope you realize that we still have to clear our own names of this mess. You do realize that right Wakuni?”

Before Wakuni could answer, Sasori chimed in. And he bit his lip as he did so. “Yes, I do remember that being the case. I hate to say it but the odds don’t look great for either of you since we all have solid alibis and yours assumes that you didn’t collaborate on this. At least, that is until someone comes with something that neither of you could have done. The point is, don’t go accusing Sanda for no reason.”

“You know, Sasori does bring up a good point,” Sama chimed in as she put her right hand to her chin. “I feel like we’ve gone over a lot so does any of what we talked about prove that either of them couldn’t have done it?”

As soon as Sama said that, I took a deep breath and tried to focus on what I remembered and whether or not Wakuni or Yakawa could have done all of what we talked about. Either of the brothers could have attacked me if they were working together since Yakawa could let Wakuni past him or Wakuni could buy Yakawa time to get back to his post. Of course, everyone could have brought the murder implements to the summit ahead of time. Anyone could have set up the poison drip mechanism. And finally, anyone could have attacked Eto, tied her up, and killed her. I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could, another thought came to me.

*(How would they have triggered the poison drip?)*

Sanda said that the drip had to be initiated which made sense because it would otherwise continue to drip and would be obvious as a result. But at the same time, the closer end of the string connected to a rolled-up section of the curtain and there weren’t any signs of any strings or other devices that could have been used to jostle the poison so they would have had to do it manually. Yet, they were sitting at one of the two innermost tables so either Koike and Senji or Sasori would have noticed them take a detour towards the curtains if they got up.

The more I thought about it, the less it made sense. The floor was a black tile floor with each tile sealed in place so that couldn’t have done anything there, all the materials from the storage room would have made a noise, the end of the string was tied around the curtains in such a way that is was impossible for it to have been tugged remotely by another string even if I found one at the scene of the crime. The roof wasn’t an option either since the string would have had to have dropped down from another location and there were no other markings anywhere besides the ones on the two curtains I found. And anything that Wakuni or Yakawa could have thrown would have made a noise. Even the possibility of them hijacking one of Machi’s bots was out of the question due to the noise those drones make. So, there was one possibility left. And my eyes widened as I came to the obvious conclusion.

*(Neither of them could have done it.)*

“Guys,” I said. As soon as I did, everyone looked at me as if I had penetrated some sort of silence. Half of the group even smiled. “I just realized this, but neither Wakuni nor Yakawa could have made their way to the curtains to trigger the poison drip without being seen. By that logic, they wouldn't have a reason to set up the trap, so it couldn’t have been either of them who Eto walked in on.”

“Well-” Sanda began with clear hesitation in his tone. “Are you sure about this Nishi? I can’t think of anyone else who could have attacked you back when half of us were stuck on the lift. Besides, just because they couldn’t have used such a mechanism doesn’t mean they didn’t kill Eto.”

“Yes it does,” Yakawa interrupted vehemently. “Nishi already proved that Eto was murdered because she walked in on the culprit setting up that poison drip trap. But we wouldn’t have had any reason to even set a trap like that up since we wouldn’t have been able to use it even if the party went according to plan.”

“So, under that logic, it would make absolutely no sense for either Wakuni or Yakawa to have set up the device,” Saeki said with more than a hint of revelation in her tone. After that, she smile and gave me the thumbs up with her right thumb. “Great find Nishi.”

“Thanks Saeki,” I replied as I gave her a smile in return. After that, I addressed the group. “I think that that is more than enough to prove that were not working as accomplices to murder anyone here.”

Everyone nodded in agreement. And at that, Wakuni and Yakawa both visibly relaxed themselves. I didn’t know that they were tense before, but they visibly exhaled and their breathing became slower than it was so if I had to guess, they were worried this entire time. Of course, I couldn’t blame them given the circumstances.

“In that case,” Sama said breaking the silence and tapping her right foot on the podium. “If neither Yakawa or Wakuni could have been the culprit, then who could have done all of this? Machi made it sound like it was impossible for anyone else to have done it.”

“I was actually thinking about that and I believe that I have an idea of who it might be,” Sasori remarked before pointing towards Senji with his right pointer finger. “Senji, you and Koike were the only people who could have triggered that setup without being noticed by anyone else.”

“Mr. Renzo,” Senji replied in a polite, but warning tone and with a raised right eyebrow. “Anyone sitting on the outskirts could have probably used that setup. Furthermore, I was with Koike the entire time during the murder investigation so we both have alibis for when the culprit tried to kill Nishi.”

“Actually Senji, I believe you are wrong. Based on your seating planner you and Koike were the only people who both sat in the back of the room and searched the summit.” Sasori rebutted calmly and coldly as he crossed his arms. “Tanabe and I were both on the lift so we physically could not have attacked Nishi. You two on the other hand could have if you were accomplices. For example, one of you could have killed Eto and the other could have killed Nishi.”

*(Not this again.)*

I sighed as the room looked at Senji. In returned, he visibly frowned. He opened his mouth to say something, but he closed it again and shook his head. Koike meanwhile crossed her arms and bit her lip. Clearly, they had no way of proving their innocence. But at the same time, I quickly realized from the setup that they both had to be innocent. So, I drew a breath, and spoke up.

“Guys,” I interrupted yet again. And once again, I felt a sharp pain in my head, this time just between the eyes, and flinched before I continued. “Where was I? Oh yes. Guys, neither of them could have done it. If Koike were behind everything, she would have to have tried to poison herself in addition to killing me. If Senji were behind everything, Koike would have noticed Senji trying to poison her as well. And either way, if they were the ones behind this then they would have just killed me instead of bringing me to Yakawa for treatment. I think it's safe to say that this is another one of the culprit’s tricks.”

Immediately, my mind went to the deck of cards that I found backstage. One of the hairs matched Senji’s, but it had to have been another trick because nobody other than the victim would have known to set up the clue and Eto would not have had any chance to do so either. So, if anything, it further proved that Senji was innocent. I made a mental note of this, but kept my mouth shut.

“About that,” Yakawa said breaking the silence as he eyed me with more than a hint of concern in his tone. He reached out his left hand, but quickly drew it away. “Nishi, are you okay? You look a little tired and I wouldn't be surprised if this is taking a toll on you.”

“Thanks Yakawa but I’m fine for now.” I insisted. “I still hurts of course and my whole body feels sapped of energy, but this is a pretty good distraction from the pain. Not that this trial is pleasant in any way-”

“I think this trial is fun. Not the best trial, but a solid six out of ten,” Monokuma interrupted with a gleefully tone while waving his right hand in the air as if he were answering a school question. In response, the entire group just gave the bear a blank stare until he put his arm down and crossed his arms. “You kids have horrible taste these days.”

“As I was trying to say, I’ll be fine,” I continued through grit teeth.

“Good,” Machi replied rather abruptly before she crossed her and continued. “That said, I think I found a flaw in your argument Nishi. Which makes enough since considering a broken clock is right two times a day. Or in your case, in two trials.”

I bit my lip and held back a retort at the obvious insult. Instead, I just sighed and asked her what she was talking about. “Machi, I don’t see any flaw in that argument. Neither of them would have brought me to Yakawa if either of them were the culprit. Besides that, Koike would have died no matter who’s plan it was.”

“And that’s where you’re wrong Nishi,” Machi surmised with a smile but brief smile. “You see, Koike didn’t necessarily have to be a target. It's entirely possible that the trajectory of the string was moved after Eto died to lift suspicion off of Koike and Senji. And as for why they brought you to Yakawa, I bet they were worried that they would look suspicious if anyone followed their footprints and traced it to where you died. Or, the whole thing could have been staged to frame Wakuni or Yakawa.”

*(Okay, that was definitely not staged!)*

I grumbled and looked away for but a brief second. What Machi was saying wasn’t right and I knew that, but I wasn’t entirely sure how to prove it. So like always, I tried to remember what happened and wracked my brain to try and remember some piece of evidence. It took me about ten seconds, but I thought of something.

“Nothing Nishi?” Machi remarked in a tone that sounded as if she wasn’t surprised in the slightest. “I guess that figures. In which case, it's too early to cross Senji and Koike off the list of suspects.”

“Actually, no it isn’t,” I remarked as I narrowed my eyes at Machi. “Remember that picture I took with the wet rings, books, and strings on the joist? Well, the killer has nothing to gain from let those wet rings stain the wood there if they used the curtain that wasn’t near Senji and Koike and they had nothing to gain from placing the books where they were if they used the curtain near Koike and Senji. The books were optional but the wet stains were stuck there after the poison was left to condensate. Therefore, the culprit had to have placed the poison there before Eto was killed.”

At that, Machi uncrossed her arms and backed down. And for a few passing moments, nobody questioned me.

“So,” Koike spoke up delicately breaking the silence as she did. “I know that Senji and I didn’t do it. But Nishi, how was anyone going to use that setup? The seconds they came close to triggering something, Senji and I would have seen them.”

“That’s where the curtain near Sasori comes into play. It isn’t nearly as close to Sasori’s table as the other curtain is to Koike’s and Senji’s table.” I remarked without so much as missing a beat. “They must have repositioned the strings to try and frame you two. But in reality, you two are the only people in the back row who couldn’t have done it without having to pass by Sasori.”

“But everyone else in the back row was stuck in the lift,” Saeki cut in with more than a hint of doubt in her tone as she put her right hand on her hip. “I know you’re too smart to think that one of us attacked you Nishi.”

“Actually, if I am correct, it sounds very much like Nishi believes that one of you did it,” Senji calmly interjected. “And if I may say so, that is the one alibi that we’ve been taking for granted this entire time.”

“It is much more likely that Nishi looked over something,” Sanda said as he gripped his podium his podium with both hands and leaned forward almost insistently. “In fact, its downright impossible for anyone on the lift to have attacked Nishi.”

At that Sasori bit his lip for a moment. But after that, his eyes went wide and he spoke up as if he had a revelation. “Sorry everyone! I just remembered. I’m going to have to agree with Sanda on that because his performance was going to call for a brief blackout after it was finished. Anyone could have reached for the curtains while the lights were out.”

*(Wait. If he’s right, then Wakuni orYakawa could have done it!)* I thought to myself as my pulse picked up for a few seconds.

“Over the course of ten seconds?” Wakuni asked with more than a hint of sarcasm. After that, he brushed the notion aside with his right hand. “I spoke to my brother about that this morning and he told me that Senji cancelled that part shortly before he talked to Sanda about it.”

“Wait! Is this what I think it is?” Came an all too familiar voice from the end of the trial room. It only took us a few seconds to collectively look a Monokuma, but that was more than long enough for him to jump up from his chair with a bounce of what looked like glee.

“I do not think it would be much help if-” Senji butted in. But it was too late.

“Yes, this is exactly what i think it is!” Monokuma shouted. “For the third time this semester, I am happy to present Newpoint Lodge’s Morphemonial Trial Grounds! Now pick a side and start the debate!”

Unlike the other times, I didn’t even look to see if everyone else was looking at their podiums. Instead, I just looked down at the screen without hesitation. Once more, there were two choices side by side. The question was ‘which group did Nishi’s attacker come from.’ To the left of the screen was a rightward arrow that said ‘the summit group’ while the option on the right of the screen said ‘the lodge group’. This time, I growled and hesitated. But nonetheless, I pressed the right arrow just before the timer hit zero.

For the third time, I felt the podium that I was resting on shift towards the center until it lined up into two neat rows that faced each other. All the while, I gripped my podium tightly with both hands and as I looked around and mine moved away from the wheelchair Yakawa brought for me, I saw everyone else’s podiums converging as well. Once that was finished, the floor lowered with a mechanical ring. It wasn’t until we hit the bottom that it stopped.

I looked around. The walls appeared to be black boxes with blue lights in the top right corners of them as if this were some kind of server or database room. Additionally, the projector in the center ceased to function. Instead, as soon as Monokuma’s seat came down on the far right end, two lights lit up under the signs that displayed our sides of the argument. And these lights projected a close up picture of a solar flare on the far left side of the room.

But more importantly, I silently took note of everyone on each side. On the side that declared that the assailant came from the lifts, there was myself, Senji, Koike, Wakuni, Yakawa, Shiro’s portrait, Seno’s portrait, and Naya’s portrait. Meanwhile, the other side had Sanda, Tanabe, Sasori, Machi, Saeki, Sama, Eto’s portrait, and Yasui’s portrait.

“Okay then,” Sama began as he shook his head with what looked like disappointment. “How exactly do you propose that our culprit managed to scale the side of a mountain and make his way back in time to avoid suspicion?”

“We never said that they free climbed Sama,” Koike argued calmly enough. “All we’re saying is that someone from your group attacked us. If we discuss it, I am sure that we’ll figure out how they did it.”

“Don’t you think it would be better to look for anything you may have missed before accusing us,” Tanabe said in a low hiss that sounded irritated. “It should be obvious by now that none of could have attacked Nishi.”

“Except we already went over everything,” Wakuni growled back. “Nishi already proved my, Yakawa, Senji, Koike, and Machi’s innocence. Most of which were proven multiple times on an individual basis.”

“You’re just saying that to shift suspicion away from your group,” Sasori accused as he pointed at Wakuni with his right pointer finger. “Besides, what Nishi found in the dining room doesn’t prove anything. We all know that anyone could have struck Nishi and Koike when Sanda’s performance was over.”

“That is quite impossible,” Senji remarked with a raised right eyebrow. “As Wakuni previously mentioned, we decided not to dim the lights after Sanda’s performance was over as a precautionary measure against events just like this one.”

“You do realize that being trapped on the lift isn’t our only alibi?” Saeki inquired with more than a hint of skepticism in her tone. “I will have you know that I was with two of you so called suspects the whole time.”

“That doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been either of the two people that you weren’t with Saeki.” I replied.

“Nishi, you’ve sustained a head injury,” Sasori said with his left hand out in looked like an appeal to me. It wasn’t going to work however if I had anything to say about it. “You aren’t thinking about this rationally.”

It turned out that I didn’t. Before I could reply, Yakawa did it for me. “Even if we account for Nishi’s head injury, Nishi isn’t the only person who is considering the possibility. Besides, she seems perfectly rational to me.”

“If someone made their way to the summit, I’m pretty sure I would have noticed.” Machi retorted as she rolled her eyes. “I should know, I looked and I saw everyone from the lodge group head off to the lift.”

“In that case, I believe the question would be, did you actually see them all trapped on the lift?” Senji replied without missing a beat. “If not, then you must consider the possibility that at least one of them could have left momentarily.”

“But when we all got to the bottom of the lift, we were together,” Sanda replied with the shake of his head even though he didn’t sound too upset about it. “I’m sorry to say, but that means our carts were pretty much right behind each other.”

“Just because you reached the ground around the same time doesn’t mean that none of you could have been Nishi’s assailant.” Yakawa rebuked. “I might not know how but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a possibility.”

“We have absolutely no reason to believe that it could have been anyone on the lift.” Sama countered. At that pointed, her words were sharp, but I noticed a few beads of sweat drip down her forehead. “What makes you think you’ll find anything by accusing us?”

“Sorry Sama, but there is also no reason not to talk about who from your group could have killed Eto and attacked me.” I replied. At that, Sama hung her head and looked at the ground with what appeared to be defeat.

As soon as I finished, the neon sign that represented my side lit up. And as I looked around the room, I noticed that everyone who disagreed showed some signs of concession whether by looking away, sighing, or other gestures. I couldn’t help but let a smile slip as the floor raised to take us back to the rest of the class trial room. Sure enough, it did and locked in place when it reached the top of the corridor and our podiums gently slid back to their original spots. Likewise, the productor in the center even turned back on. However, I barely noticed over holding on to the handrails to make sure that I didn’t fall off.

When we finally shifted back into our places, a silence followed the room. Senji opened his mouth, but closed it and grumbled something to himself as he looked away. If I had to guess, nobody had any idea of where to start. So basically, it was just like the past two class trials after my side won the little two sided debates.

*(Looks like it's up to me this time.)*

And so, I cleared my throat and spoke up. “Okay so, since we narrowed it down to candidates on the lift, I think it might be a good idea to reevaluate our pool of suspects. We know that the culprit had to have been able to use a crossbow and access Lullaby-7 which everyone could do, we know that our culprit had to be male to get a spare coat from the waypoint station ahead of time, and our culprit had to have been someone from the lift since I proved everyone else innocent.”

“Hey, wait a second,” Sama said as she looked up almost as though she had broken free of some sort of stupor. “That narrows our list of suspects down to three people. Sanda, Tanabe and Sasori.”

“Indeed, it does,” Senji said with a calm enough tone even though he exhaled what looked like a sigh of relief. “Furthermore Ms. Koetsu, I do believe that we might be able to further narrow that list down. See, I believe that if my schedule listing is up to date, Sanda was going to head straight to the front row once he was finished with his performance.”

“Actually, we can’t narrow that list down based on the dining room,” Sasori warned as he bit his lip and looked away. “Tanabe could have looped around backstage to reach my curtain and Sanda would have had a few minutes to operate behind the scenes before he was expected to head to his own seat. So to be fair, all three of us are still suspects.”

Sanda just narrowed his eyes at Sasori as soon as he finished. “Of course you’re going to throw us under the bus, you’re a suspect yourself. Actually, come to think of it, you don’t have an alibi for any of what happened.”

“That is not true,” Sasori growled as he shook his right fist as Sanda. After that, he took a deep breath and lowered his fist. “That is not true. While I could have poisoned Nishi and Koike, Sama will happily vouch that I absolutely could not have attacked Nishi during the investigation.”

“You say that as if we don’t have that exact same alibi ourselves.” Tanabe said with a slight hint of apprehension in his tone. Moreover, I saw a few beads of sweat drip down his forehead. “And I know for a fact that I didn’t kill Eto or attack Nishi.”

“Well of course you’re going to say that you didn’t kill Eto,” Wakuni muttered under his breath though I still heard it. “You would say that even if, no, especially if you were the culprit. You’d have nothing to gain otherwise.”

At that, I almost felt the tension rise between the three suspects. In fact, all three of them started to drip beads of sweat. I took closed my eyes for a split second and dared to hope that I was wrong, but when I opened my eyes, I knew that it was undeniable. Tanabe, Sasori, and Sanda were being driven into a mass panic.

*(One of these days, I should consider using my watch on them. If I didn’t need to avoid messing with their memory, I would do it right now.)*

Tanabe: “Honest, I’m not the culprit!”

Sasori: “I am most certainly not the culprit!”

Sanda: “I’m innocent!”

Wakuni: “Man, I don’t want to accuse you Tanabe. You’re pretty alright as far as classmates go. But you’ve always been a sneaky one.”

Sasori: “There is no way that I could have attacked Nishi while I trapped on the lift. Ergo, I could not have done everything that the killer did.”

Sanda: “I would never try to hurt Nishi. I don’t know why you would think that I would want her dead for some reason.”

Tanabe: “Sneaky or not, I was suspended in the middle of a lift cart way above the ground and over the side of a mountain.”

Sasori: “You can say whatever you want, but that doesn’t change the fact that I was right behind Sama on the lift. We met at the bottom.”

Sanda: “besides, I couldn’t have attacked Nishi even if I wanted to. I was with two other people on the lift the entire time.”

Tanabe: “Even if you ignore the fall from that height, Sama made a good point earlier. I’d have to scale the side of a mountain and back in a short time.”

Sasori: “Unfortunately, Tanabe and Sanda have claims to similar alibis, but I don’t have the same skills that some of them could have used.”

Machi: “Well Sanda, you did boast earlier that you were the Super High School Level Illusionist. If anyone could trick the others, it would be you.”

Tanabe: “Besides that, Sanda and Saeki both had their eyes on me the entire time. How could I have left to attack Nishi if I was with them?”

Sasori: “For example, Sanda Iwane is the Super High School Level illusionist. If anyone could fake an alibi like this, I am willing to believe that he could.”

Sanda: “An image, maybe. But Saeki and I had a full-blown conversation with each other about the investigation. That’s not something that I can fake.”

For a moment, I looked away and thought about what the three of them had said. Additionally, I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that one of them had just said something that could prove two out of three of them innocent at least. The question then was of course, could the third person have attacked me. So, I focused on each alibi.

*(Tanabe is obviously innocent since he was with Saeki and Sanda the entire time. Sanda is a bit harder to confirm since he is the Super High School Level Illusionist but Saeki didn’t argue when he said he held an entire conversation with her so he has to be telling the truth. There’s just no way you could fake that. But- at the same time, Sasori boarded the lift cart with- Sama. No wait- he didn’t.)*

I didn’t even attempt to hide my realization when got it. Namely, the realization that Sasori’s alibi wasn’t quite as airtight as we all initially thought. Sasori has been tricking Sama this whole time to make sure that he wouldn’t be a suspect.

“I’ve figured it out!” I shouted as I slammed both my hands on the podium. “Tanabe, Sanda, you two can stop panicking now. You are both innocent.”

“Nishi, are you insinuating what I think you’re insinuating?” Sasori replied in almost a glare and with more than a hint of foreboding in his tone. To be honest, I couldn’t blame him. Nonetheless, he did manage to recompose himself and shake his head before he gave a likely forced smile. “Nishi, you are not thinking rationally. It’s impossible. There is simply no way that I could have done it even if I wanted to.”

“I think that I’m thinking perfectly rationally,” I replied as I crossed my arms. “My head is still killing me thanks to you, but I’m still able to make deductions and I’m still fully aware of what we found.”

“Ah, I see that you really think that,” Sasori muttered in what sounded like disappointment as he looked away. “No matter. The odds were never in your favor Nishi. It was only a matter of time before you made an incorrect presumption. I suppose that I will just have to explain to you why you are wrong.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but I closed it and listened to what Sasori had to say. After all, everyone deserved to have the chance to defend themselves and we did need to conduct a thorough trial. Seno had always been right about that at least. So, I withheld my judgement and waited for his argument.

“So you see Nishi, I was right behind Sama the entire time. I’m sure that she will vouch for me that I followed her onto the lift. Sama is my alibi.” Sasori began in a tone and demeanor that was as if he wasn’t being accused. “Frankly, I think it is probable that we are wasting our time by accusing everyone on the lift. We probably missed something earlier that would allow one of the prior suspects to have done everything the culprit did.”

“No dice Sasori,” I said with the shake of my head. For once, I didn’t feel the pity that I usually did stir in me. I didn’t hate Sasori and I wasn’t apathetic to him, but he did attack me. “You actually could have attacked me. You stopped during the investigation to show us the picture of that door with the broken card reader. During which, you told Sama to go ahead of you and to meet you at the bottom of the lift. Not the top, but the bottom. Sasori, I don’t think you stepped foot in a lift cart until after Machi fixed the system.”

“Well that is preposterous Nishi,” Sasori replied with a raised right eyebrow. “I mean to say that there is simply no way I could have planned that ahead of time. How could I possibly know that you and Wakuni were going to be at the summit?”

*(That is a good question actually.)*

“As you can see, there is simply no way for me to plan such an attack against you ahead of time.” Sasori said to capitalize on my hesitation. If I were to guess, he knew that I didn't know because he cracked a smile. “Do you see it Nishi? I am innocent just like Sanda and Tanabe. I would never hurt you.”

It was about that time that the answer came to me and I responded. “Actually, that might be what all the extra clothes that you wore was for. Though I imagine that you probably kept the extra coat of every living male student stashed somewhere just in case.”

“Hold on Nishi,” Saeki chimed in. “What extra clothes are you referring to?”

“I’m glad you asked Saeki,” I replied. “When the assailant attacked me, he wore several layers of clothing under his coat. If he didn’t then I could have just asked everyone to roll up their sleeves and be done with this class trial because I tore through several layers of clothing with a knife while I was escaping. I imagine that our culprit did so to better fit Wakuni’s build and to disguise his own in case he was spotted.”

“I- well Nishi, that is not the only reason why it would be completely illogical for me to be the culprit,” Sasori cut in though he looked down at his podium and sighed after he spoke up. “There is also the matter of attending the trial you know. Why would I risk stranding myself and getting myself punished?”

“Sasori, that problem applies to everyone,” Sama said with a glare at Sasori.

“Not to mention the fact that the issue was literally just a few well-hidden wires out of place and connected to the wrong machines,” Machi said with a quick nod. “If the trial announcement were to play or if I was about to start to cause irreversible damage, you could have knocked me out and fixed it yourself.”

“And suddenly, its starting to look like you could have attacked Nishi,” Sama said with some edge in her tone. Shortly after that, she crossed her arms and looked away. If I had to guess, she probably felt used and betrayed like Eto did.

“Well- I mean- that is to say,” Sasori began to stutter through his sentences all while a bead of sweat dripped from his forehead. At that, I did feel a wave of pity for the guy. But a subsequent headache took it away just as quickly and had me grip my forehead with my right hand as Sasori continued. “It is simply not possible. It is simply illogical. Where would have possibly have hidden all of those extra clothes and such?”

“Literally anywhere where we already searched,” Senji told Sasori as he looked over to me with what looked like sympathy. He frowned shortly after that. “It would be easy to examine our footprints and determine which paths we have already searched since we likely would not have searched the same place twice. Actually, I am inclined to believe that the clothes are stashed somewhere at the summit.”

*(Thanks for covering for me Senji.)*

“Did you do it Sasori?” Saeki asked with a tone that sounded more disappointed than anything else. “We were going to figure out what was going and all get out of here alive, but if what Nishi is saying is right-”

“I did not kill Eto,” Sasori replied through a sigh before he shook his head. “I- well, I hate to say this but I believe a partial confession is in order. I didn’t want to say this because I knew that you would all hate me. But I can tell that this is the only way we will collectively determine out who killed Eto. The truth is, I witnessed Eto’s death.”

As one might expect, the room fell silent at that. More to the point, by the time I looked up at Sasori, I noticed that everyone else was looking at him as well. All with mixed expressions of distrust. Naturally, everyone suspected him including myself, but I forced myself to ignore the thought that he could be lying and to withhold my judgement. He had to, or at least I was sure that he had to, have killed Eto and attacked me. But considering how many suspects there were this trial, I needed to acknowledge the possibility that she was innocent.

“Anyways,” Sasori said as he put his right hand up to his neck and cleared his throat. “Nishi has been right about a lot of things. I suppose that I should start from the beginning. I did in fact head to the summit around the time that Eto was murdered but only to lock the food away so that it couldn’t be poison which is iron really when you think about it. Long story short, I saw Nishi dragging Eto’s body to the crossroads on my own way there. I hid as she put the crossbow into the hiding spot that you found Senji and when the coast was clear, I took the lift back to the lodge-”

“But- if you’re telling the truth and you saw Nishi, why didn’t you just tell us?” Koike asked with some confusion in her tone. “I mean, if you are telling the truth, then we nearly voted for the wrong person and you just let it happen.”

“Because, I silently hoped that we could figure it out without me confessing what I did next,” Sasori said as he looked away and grimaced. “I hate to say it, but I didn’t think that we’d be able to beat Nishi. So, I thought that the only way to preserve my own life would be to take hers before she duped us all in the class trial and to graduate myself. Everything she said that I did in setting up the attack against her is true. I had everything planned out so that I would kill her if she wanted to go down to the lodge with us as well.”

I shuddered, scowled, glared at Sasori, and tightened both of my fists. First, he tries to kill me twice, then he tries to frame me. I had never so many contradicting feelings for the same person at a given time but I felt an irreconcilable mix of sympathy for how pathetic his excuses were, anger, and frustration rise in me.

*(You will regret this Sasori.)*

“Sasori,” I growled. “Do you realize how many hoops I jumped through to prove Wakuni, Yakawa, Senji, and Koike innocent? I promise you that you are not helping your case by accusing me.”

“Nishi has a very valid point,” Tanabe said as he came to my aid with a quick nod. “If Nishi were the blackened, it would have been all too easy for her to just let Wakuni take the fall for her actions. Hypothetically speaking of course since I doubt that she is guilty.”

“Look. I know that you all may be hesitant to believe me. However, you cannot disprove anything that I said. Nishi was the only person other than myself to witness most of the events that have happened. So naturally, you all have just had to take her word for it up until now.” Sasori surmised before shaking his head. “You can vote now if you want to, but you will have a fifty percent chance of getting it wrong and I’m telling you that if you vote for me, this trial won’t end with everyone else surviving.”

“Hmm,” Senji thought to himself as he put his right hand to his chin. “No matter. We have no problem waiting to vote. I personally will not be voting for Nishi unless you come up with substantial proof of what you are saying but I have a feeling that she will determine a way to prove her innocence so that will not be necessary. I would prove or disprove your claim myself of course, but I don’t have an adequate understanding of the crime.”

*(Yeah. I just have to find something that proves that I couldn’t have done it and can be verified by someone else.)*

And so, I focused on trying to remember the crime scene and as well as what everyone found and what the killer did. But even as I did, Sasori refused to remain silent and wait for me to come up with and answer. He inhaled for about a second. And with that, he began on last rapid fire debate.

“As you can probably ascertain, Nishi has absolutely no alibi to absolve her,” Sasori said as he held out his left hand as if motioning to me. “If she did, she would have explained it to us by now.”

“Face it, you know that this is absolutely something that you could have done Nishi,” Sasori continued as he turned towards me. “Everyone needs to know that a vote for me is a vote for a mistrial.”

“You can hide your guilt from everyone else in the room, but you won't hide it from me Nishi,” Sasori continued furthermore. This time, adopting a grimm smile. “I’m sorry to say, but this is the end of the line for you.”

“You should not have killed Eto, Nishi,” Sasori remarked once more as he dropped his left hand and put both behind his back. “You’re secret is up. You are not going to graduate this trial.”

“Why don’t you just confess Nishi. You have no defense,” Sasori said as he gave one last verbal push. “Can you give me even a single reason as to why you could not have killed Eto?”

About that time, the answer came to me. Namely, I remembered something that Sasori himself had showed me that would be able to prove my innocence and close this case once and for all. So, I sighed and gave a single nod to Sasori.

“The glass window pane.” I replied. “More specifically, the glass window pane that covers the rack where the crossbows are stored. Said window is protected by a combination lock, but nobody ever gave me the combination to that lock. So, I could not have shot Eto’s body in the back with it or stored the crossbows in the snow like you said I did. Now, does anyone here object?”

After that, another silence spread through the group as people looked at each other. But of course, nobody protested. After all, how could they? I knew that everyone here except for Sasori was innocent so it wasn’t like they were going to expose something that I didn’t do and get themselves killed. And after ten seconds when someone did speak up, it was to confirm my defense.

“I know that I for one never got around to telling Nishi the combination to that lock. And the sticky note with the combination that was on the pane above the combination lock was also gone before Nishi showed up to the archery room,” Wakuni remarked. “By the way everyone, the combination is 110011 if anyone is interested in practicing with me in the future.”

“So it looks like Nishi is innocent after all,” Sama remarked with drooped eyes and a tone that made it sound like she wasn’t even remotely surprised by the fact. “Sasori, do you have anything say about all of this?”

“Of course. I couldn’t not have killed Eto because- well- that is to say- because I- there is no- it’s not possible- I-” Sasori began as he avoided eye contact with her and sounded more desperate with each passing word. Finally, he just crossed his arms and looked down. “I don’t have anything to say. I’m innocent. I really am, but there’s nothing I can say to make you believe me. I- if you all simply won’t believe me I- I suppose we’ll all have to meet each other on the other side. Except for Nishi of course. That’s- that is all I have to say.”

“In a way, this is kind of sad,” Koike said with one last remark. “I mean, he was horrible to Nishi and Eto was my friend but Sasori is clearly desperate at the same time and nobody deserves what Monokuma does. Hey Nishi. Could we maybe go over this one more time? A quick review just so that we know for sure that he’s actually guilty.”

I nodded. I have done it twice before and it really was a good tradition to keep up with if only to ensure that everyone was treated fairly and that there wasn’t anything critical that we missed during the trial. Besides that, I agreed with everything that Koike said about the situation. Sasori was likely going to die a horrific death and I felt a small trace of guilt for not being more sorry about that.

*(Dang it. Why do I feel sorry for a guy who killed my friend and tried to kill and frame me?)*

Regardless, I audibly swallowed, focused on the sequence of events, and began the closing statement. “Alright. Like before, we received a motive before the murder. This time, a CD containing information about every killing game that had been conducted prior to this one. I do not know whether or not the motive is responsible for triggering the crime, but I do know that our culprit planned to commit a double murder after that. Everyone went to sleep afterwards, but the next morning when we chose a activity, our killer put their plan into motion.”

“With the crime scene ready, our culprit devised a contraption to kill both me and Koike,” I continued. “That night, after everyone was finished setting up the party, our culprit gather materials for their contraption. They took two bottles of Lullaby-7, duct tape, two pieces of string, and knockout stickers from the storage room, and they took four books from the weather station to set up their crime. After that, the killer returned to the dining hall to set up the trap. The culprit wrapped the string around the curtain closest to them and propped the poison up on the joist so that when the time came for the party, they could drip feed poison to Koike and I. But before our killer could finish, someone walked in on them.”

I sighed but I pressed on. After all, I was doing this for everyone so I couldn’t back down. “That person was Eto Uzuki. I’m afraid, her last act was to save my life because our culprit overpowered her, drugged her unconscious, duct taped her to a chair in the dining room, and force fed her Lullaby-7. I do not know whether or not she was conscious when he did this, but I can only hope that she didn’t suffer. Regardless, the killer knew that with Eto dead, the party could not continue. So the culprit altered the crime scene.”

“Our culprit was busy that night.” I surmised. “The killer moved Eto’s body to the crossroads, moved the location of the string in the dining hall to through off our trail, left a deck of cards to implicate Senji in the dining hall, destroyed the lock to the tunnel passage, and moved on to the weather station. From there, the killer overturned a chair, left three strands of duct tape, and smashed the coffee machine to make it look like Eto had struggled there. After that, the killer left a trail of footprints in the snow and salted them to make it appear as if Eto came from the weather station. After all, I am sure our killer could find out there would be a blizzard to cover all other tracks by simply reading the data there.”

“But our killer did not stop there,” In continued. “At some point, the culprit travelled to the lodge, the waypoint station, and backstage to obtain yet more supplies. Namely, two crossbows and arrows, a few coats, and some extra clothes so that they would appear bulkier. Once they returned, they shot Eto’s body in the back to make it look like Eto had died from an arrow wound. But even that wasn’t enough for our killer. Nope, he just HAD to try and commit a second murder. Our killer, now hell bent of killing me, stashed one of the crossbows, some arrows, and all the extra clothes near the cliff facing the lift. All with the intent to kill me. At the same time, the culprit may have taken the opportunity to bleed some the the emergency power in the lift so that it would stall when the time came. Finally, the killer went to sleep like everyone else to prepare for the big day.”

I continued. “That morning, everyone was worried because Koike and Eto had both gone missing so they formed search parties. Yakawa, Wakuni, the killer, and I all went to the summit where we found Eto’s lifeless body hidden in the snow. At the time, the culprit feigned disgust, but once everyone arrived and began to investigate, he set his second plan into motion. If I had gone down to the lodge, the killer would have murdered me there. But as things stood, the culprit was forced to improvise. To fake an alibi, the culprit went to the tunnel passage with Sama which had been blocked off prior and headed back to the lift when he inevitably could not open the locked door. I imagine that our killer would have stopped by Yakawa if we had not shown up, but as things stood, all the culprit needed to do was ask Sama to go on ahead and wait for him at the bottom of the lift while he showed us what happened.”

I continued. All the while, I dared to wish that this would be the last time I had to do this. But somehow, I doubted it. “Once the killer left on their own, they rewired the generator at the top of the lift so that everyone riding it would be stranded. This gave them an alibi and prevented any investigations of the lodge. As an added bonus, it even lured Machi to the lift station while I had to search the weather station. The killer didn’t take much time after that to strike. They put on their clothes, grabbed the crossbow, and headed to the weather station using a makeshift path to sneak past Yakawa. All the while, the killer probably launched an arrow to distract him. Regardless, the coast was clear and he poised to strike.”

I continued biting my lip as I did. “In spite of that, our killer failed miserably. They fired at me through the window of the weather station but missed. I identified someone wearing Wakuni’s coat and bounded to the exit, but before I could escape, the killer slammed the door in my face and broke my nose. After that, he blocked the exit and traded blows with me. It was then that I tore the sleeve of his coat with my knife and saw that the blackened was wearing clothes underneath the coat. After that, we both fell over. He grabbed my leg and put a sleep patch on it, but I managed to break free and sprint away. Nonetheless, the poison did its work. It was only by luck that Senji and Koike found me when I collapsed.

I continued. “But they did and our killer had no choice but to retreat. Senji gave chase, but they managed to escape by retracing their tracks, dumping the crossbow off near the cliff, and leading Senji to the cliff while they made a getaway. Afterwards, they hid the remainder of their gear somewhere that had already been searched and headed off to the weather station. Our killer was probably ready to harm Machi before she could do any permanent damage, but that proved unnecessary when she fixed the problem. All our killer had to do was get into the lift cart and reunite with the group at the bottom of the lift as if he had been trapped with them the entire time.”

At that, I took a deep breath and began to conclude my closing statement. “With all of that out of the way, all the killer did was finish up on the final touches such as hindering the investigation with poor suggestions to the rest of the search group and taking misleading pictures of the crossbows in the archery room in case they needed to make it look like there were two crossbows used for the crime. And at that, the killer wrapped up and congregated at the class trial elevator. And that killer is you Sasori Renzo, Super High School Level Statistician!”

Once more, my head started throbbing again and I felt somewhat winded but a few deep breaths restored me to how I felt before I came to closing statement. As for Sasori, he just stared at me without so much as a word. He showed no signs of anger or judgement, but he did bury his head into both of his hands.

“So-” Saeki trailed off as she glanced over at him. “Now what should we do?”

“Isn’t it obvious Saeki?” Machi replied though without the edge in her tone that was usually there. “If Sasori has nothing left to say, then we have to vote again. I mean, we know exactly how everything happened. Hey Sasori, what do you have to say about all this?”

All Sasori returned was silence. In fact, he didn’t so much as look up at machi.

“Well then-” Sanda spoke up after passing a glance at Sasori and frowning. Apparently, he picked up on Sasori’s silence just like I did. “It doesn’t look like Sasori has anything to say. Monokuma, we are ready to vote now. I hate this part the most of all, but it is what it is I suppose.”

“But Sanda, this is the part that’s to die for!” Monokuma said as he stood up on his chair and waved his arms to grab his attention. After that, he dropped his tone to a more formal demeanor. “Okie dokie then, it is voting time! Soon, you will see a list of students on the ballot screen. Tap the one who you think is guilty to place a vote! Just remember to vote! I know that I would hate to punished for forgetting to do something as small as tap a screen!”

Like that, the ballot screen appeared on the screen on my stand once more. Like always, there was a four by four grid with everyone’s face on it. And like before, there was a countdown timer at the top of the screen that marked how much time I had to vote before I suffered a horrific execution for not voting. The only difference in fact, was that Shiro and Eto’s pictures were faded with X’s over them. Regardless, I pushed down on Sasori’s face. Surely enough, it enlarged, turned yellow, and froze the screen. After that, I looked up just in time for Monokuma’s seemingly obligatory comment.

“Upupupu!” Monokuma replied. “I wonder what the odds are. Will the spotless get it right three times in a row, or will the third time be the charm! There’s only one way to find out!”

Like before, the monitor slowly dropped behind Monokuma to where everyone could view the results. And I had to admit that I would be lying if I ever claimed that my pulse didn’t pick up as the results on the screen came to life. Intellectually, I knew I was right and that everyone agreed with me. But psychologically, the doubt would always burn in the back of my mind.

* Senji Kenazane: 0
* Saeki Masu: 0
* Sanda Iwane: 0
* Seno Sotatsu: 0
* Koike Juichi: 0
* Shiro Michihiro: 0
* Tanabe Kenzaburo: 0
* Yakawa Shoda: 0
* Nishi Toshiro: 1
* Tasui Katai: 0
* Sama Koetsu: 0
* Machi Satu: 0
* Naya Hitomi: 0
* Sasori Renzo: 10
* Eto Uzuki: 0
* Wakuni Shoda: 0

I didn’t let out a sigh of relief, but I was more than happy to see that everybody voted which meant that if I was right, nobody would be executed other than the culprit. Sasori’s death would be sad enough in of itself of course, but if i was right, then that was one more trial that we made it through alive.

For the third time, the screen changed to the same roulette when from before with eighteen different spots. Including the two random adjacent spots on the wheel that denoted Monokuma and the mastermind. And like always, there was both a half-white and half-black ball in the Monokuma section and an unlit neon ‘guilty’ sign in the middle of the wheel.

For the third time, everything except the center spun rapidly and the ball was dislodged from monokuma’s section. Like the second time we did this, I wasn’t as nearly as I was during the first class trial when the wheel started up, but I still held my breath as I waited for the wheel to hopefully stop over Sasori Renzo. My eyes were fixed on the wheel, but I noticed out of the corners of my eyes that everyone was more or less doing the same. It slowed down to a craw just before Sasori and my skin visibly turned paler, but luckily, the wheel barely landed on Sasori being the culprit. With that, the neon sign lit up and confetti began to fill the screen until the whole thing was covered and it slowly faded to black. Finally, the monitor retracted.

“Three for three! I can’t believe it!” Monokuma yelled again as he jumped onto the ground with an unnecessary front flip. “Everyone except Sasori is correct. Sasori Renzo did in fact, kill Eto Uzuki and plan two double murders! That being said, most people who plan double murders actually end up killing two people. You are a disgrace to blackened everywhere Sasori.”

*(I would like to think that there aren’t that many other places with people who play your sick game.)*

I shook my head and exhaled a huge sigh of relief. At that, I stepped away from my podium along with everyone else. The podium was somewhat higher than the floor and I staggered backwards as I stepped off, but I caught myself and looked around. From the looked of things, everyone congregated near me including Sasori who just closed his eyes and frowned.

“I am sorry to all of you. I never meant to anyone to suffer,” Sasori said in an almost pleading tone. “Yet here we are. There isn’t a single one of you who I haven’t manipulated, framed, hurt, or planned to hurt. Especially Nishi since I did all of those things to her.”

“Why did you even do it?” Wakuni questioned as he took a step closer to being between myself and Sasori. “Are you really so desperate for a CD that you are willing to risk murdering two people and killing everyone else?”

“To add to that, Eto was my friend,” Saeki said with a disappointed tone in her hum. “All she ever wanted to was for everyone to get along. She trusted you, you know? She trusted everyone here with her life.”

"I never wanted anyone to suffer. In fact, I only targeted two people, to begin with, because I wanted to spare as many people from execution as I could." Sasori replied. "That's why I tried to kill Koike anyways. Since she already suffered enough, I thought the least I could do for her was to make sure her death was painless. That and I thought it would interfere with any defenses that Senji might have had. As for Nishi, she was always the primary target because she was a threat to me. I had nothing against anyone here."

"But why did you even do it in the first place?" I asked as I tried to shake off what he said about Koike and me.

“I-” Sasori drew a deep breath. “I was never my intent to murder Eto although I did consider it. And I never wanted any of you to take the fall for this but- but things are considerably more complicated than you realize. There is something that I have to show you.”

At that, Sasori drew out his ElectroID from his pocket, scrolled through it, and turned it around so that we could see what was on the screen. Namely, we saw what I could only guess was the corner of the inside of Sasori’s room complete with a metal chest in the center. Furthermore, said metal chest was about half of my size and was filled to the brim and overflowing with nothing but pictures of people. Some were normal, but the vast majority, or roughly 98%, were greyed out with red X’s drawed on them.

*(This has to be a joke right?!)*

I went numb with horror at what I saw. I wasn’t in a particularly good mood today, but I felt whatever happiness that I did have get drained from me. I wasn’t the only one either. Everyone else seemed to show some sign of disgust before Sasori put his arm down.

“I found a key that led me to opening that chest about the same time that Seno found the key to the shed that burned down. I must confess that I have been planning to commit a murder ever since I’ve looked at what was inside,” Sasori replied. “I’ve counted them all and here is what I’ve deduced, over twelve hundred people have died playing these killing games. More to the point, our class wasn’t targeted by circumstance-”

*(Is he going where I think he’s going?)*

“Whoever is behind these killing games is systematically wiping out the entire student body. We are class 90 correct? There have been eighty-three killing games prior to this one and nine that are running parallel to this one. And to further confirm to the parallel killing game theory, it is the only way that the mastermind could have killed so many of us this way in such a short time frame. Not to mention the fact that my- uh- reward updates from time to time,” Sasori said with a scowl which he dropped immediately after. “I never had any ill will towards you, not even now as I am about to die, but after seeing those pictures, I have come to the realization that we could never have hoped to resolve this issue from the inside. I needed to graduate and collect that CD to show the proper authorities and put a stop to this. I know it is selfish but Hope’s Peak is everything to me. It is the key to a better future for everyone I didn’t want to betray you but there is an entire school full of people like you that is perishing.”

“So you wanted to kill us to save them,” Sama said as she looked away and frowned just a little. “I’m not okay with what you did. I’m not okay with any of it. What you did to Eto and Nishi and me was absolutely horrible.”

“Uhm- Sasori? There is one thing that I wanted to know,” Koike said as she looked up visibly paler than usual. “Was Eto unconscious when-”

“Eto didn’t suffer, not physically anyways. She did regrettably wake her up before I killed her but I did make the best of it. I let her say goodbye and I explained to her why she had to die since I thought it might have brought some comfort to know that her death would save others. After that, she was blindfolded and I drugged her again when the time came to feed her the Lullaby-7. She didn’t experience any pain. That didn’t stop it from being to worst thing that I have ever done though,” Sasori replied. “That actually reminds me. Eto’s last request was for her family to know how she died and how much she will miss them. I told her that I planned to confess to everything once I escaped, but it looks like that won’t be an option for me anymore. No matter, I deserve this.” He turned to Machi and held out his ElectroID. “Machi, I am counting on you to give everyone access to my room so that they can know what is happening with the other classes.”

“Yeah- yeah,” Machi said as she took the ElectroID from Sasori. Surprisingly enough, even she sounded as though she were mildly depressed about the situation. “I’ll probably have it finished by tomorrow morning.”

“Now that that is settled. I do have two more things that I have to confess,” Sasori remarked as he crossed his arms. “First, I knew all along that Yasui was the first culprit and agreed to play along with his alibi in exchange for him revealing the truth. Second, Nishi, I have been planning to murder you ever since the end of class trial one. In fact, I would have strangled you in the game room that one time if Eto hadn’t been in the art room to witness my heading there.”

At that, I shivered. And at the same time, I felt sick to my stomach. Sasori would never have done any of this if he didn’t feel like it was his only way ro stop this. Yet here we were. It was just bad all around. Of course, I wasn’t the only person who felt this way. After a few seconds of silence, Koike spoke up.

“What. You knew? You knew that I was innocent and you sided with Yasui’s accusation against me?!” Koike said with evident pain and revelation in her tone. “Do you have any idea whatsoever how stressful that was for me?! I’ve only recently stopped having nightmares about it!”

At that, Senji glared at Sasori and Sasori opened his mouth to speak. But before anyone could say anything, an all too familiar stuffed animatronic teddy bear walked up to up and interrupted. “Alright! Now that that exposition is over, this trial has been going on for far too long!”

“Looks like you are in luck Koike. I am about to get exactly what I deserve for all the horrible things that I have done,” Sasori remarked with a flat tone and an aside glance. Koike opened her mouth as her expression changed to what looked like horror but Sasori held out his right hand to stop her. “It’s okay. I really do deserve this. I will never forgive myself for what I have done from helping Yasui to Killing Eto to hurting NIshi. I don’t expect any of you to forgive me either.”

“I have prepared an extra special punishment for Sasori Renzo, Super High School Level Statistician.” Monokuma continued with glee that would almost lead me to believe he was oblivious to it all. Almost.

“Aren’t you going to resist him?” I asked him.

Sasori just shook his head. “I have been resisting for days Nishi. I have been resisting for days…”

“The end has come for Sasori Renzo!.” Monokuma remarked just as cheerful as before. “It is game over! Our culprit has run out of tricks! His hand is empty! Our ace is in a hole! I am running out of card metaphors but it doesn’t matter! It’s Punishment Time!”

None in a million chance

I watched as the screen dimmed until only a silhouette of the raffle container remained. Not long after, the screen completed faded to black and retracted. I never thought that I would feel sorry for the person who killed Eto and attacked me, but when I finally looked away, I felt torn. Sasori was pushed to do what he did by a harsh reality that we all now had to face. One where there may very well be no way out and where so many other people were going through what we went through.

*(Didn’t Sasori mention nine other mutual killing games going on right now?)*

Regardless, I turned around and headed back to the Elevator along with everyone else. Some of us went by ourselves of course like Sanda and Machi, but Sama, Saeki, Koike, and Senji headed in that direction while Tanabe, Wakuni, and Yakawa accompanied me on my own trip towards the elevator. All of them, of course, looking about as awful as I felt though at least Yakawa had to consideration to drag the wheelchair back with him to the elevator.

“Hey Nishi,” Yakawa spoke up with just a hint of a smile. “I know I don’t look like it, but I am happy that you acquitted us. We owe you. Like, if you need help with anything at all other than committing a murder, just come to us.”

“You’re like a guardian angel Nishi,” Wakuni agreed in with a quick nod.

“Well I don’t feel like much of a hero right now,” I complained. It felt whiny to me, but I thought that I earned it. “I still have a splitting headache right now and on top of that, there are nine other killing games going on and eighty-three that have been completed. I feel sick just saying it.”

“Well, well, well. You guys are in such a big hurry! You didn’t even get to hear me confirm that Sasori Renzo is in fact, one hundred percent correct about all the other killing games! My boss really doesn’t like you guys.” Came Monokuma’s voice as he sprung out between us and the elevator. “And you all haven’t even asked if the elevator was ready yet!”

We all just glared at the bear. In fact, I could almost feel the concentrated antipathy in the room. If hatred could provide energy, we could absolutely have solved the world’s power crises then and there. This went on for about ten seconds before Monokuma finally spoke up.

“Yeesh, I guess i’ll get going then,” Monokuma said as he crossed his arms. “The elevator is ready. You all can leave any time you wish. Not the mountain or the killing game of course, but you are free to leave the trial room. Anyways, toodles.”

No later than after he waved goodbye, jumped away, and disappeared. And once he did, we left the trial room through the double doors and marched into the elevator with what I could only imagine was the same haunting feeling. The doors closed behind us when we all boarded, but it looked as if we barely noticed. Shortly after that, the elevator rattled and began to ascend.

I looked around at the group. There were legitimately only ten of us left. If things kept going at this rate, there would only be half of our original group within two days. Assuming we didn’t lose whatever class trial came after this one of course which was always a possibility that burned all too really in the back of my mind.

I looked around at the group. Wakuni and Yakawa were looking at each other with what had to be worried glances for fear that they would lose themselves or their brother, Tanabe, Machi, and Sanda were all by themselves and of them, Tanabe was shaking every now and then, Sama and Saeki were speaking to each other in a low enough tone to where I couldn’t hear what they were saying but I doubted it would be anything good, and Koike looked like she was on the verge of tears and had her arms wrapped around Senji. I heard Senji tell her that it was going to be okay, but it could not have sounded hollower and he himself looked like he knew that.

As for myself, I didn’t feel much better than any of them. After all, what lie could I have possibly told myself to have felt better. To say that this was bad was an understatement. Unless someone stepped up and did what nobody before them had been able to do, these killing games were not going to stop. It did not necessarily make our situation impossible because there logically had to be a way to and from this mountain, but it meant that our chances of escaping were staggeringly low and it meant that nobody was willing or able to save us. It meant that one of us would have to step up and save everyone if such a feat is even possible.

Somehow, I smiled at that.

*(Here’s to hoping this story has a hero.)*

## Trivia

* For those of you have guessed that Yakawa was the culprit, he was originally going to be the culprit. But when the creator was planning the story out, they decided that it would be better for him to switch roles with Sasori.
* This chapter has the most changes out of any chapter. Aside from the culprit being changed, Nishi was going to be unconscious for the class trial and Senji was going to solve the mystery. At one point, the creator even considered killing her off.
* Additionally, Nishi and Yakawa were originally going to be a couple by the time that Yakawa committed a murder in the original version.
* In spite of everything, Nishi still has no idea that she is currently the protagonist.