Dangan Ronpa: Unser Sommerende/Chapter 4 - Deadly Life

Continued from Chapter 4 - Daily Life (2).

[1]

“Attention! A body has been discovered! After a short time allotted for investigation, a class trial will be held to determine the culprit!”

[2]

... Well, it was another dead body. What am I supposed to say? Her eyes were as empty as the penguin doll’s button eyes.

“Well?” Mary said, not sounding shaken at all. Then again, neither was I. “It’s a dead body. You’ve seen a good few already.”

“I mean... It’s not just a dead body, it’s Amber.”

“It was Amber.”

“... I guess the rest of the class is going to come down here now. Should we just wait, or is there something else you planned to do?”

“I didn’t expect the alarm to go. I’m surprised that someone else must have seen the body before me, in that case. I was expecting us to have a chance to discuss it on our own, perhaps...”

“That’s real strange, you never seemed very diplomatic with me until now.”

“... I have a bad feeling about it. I have a bad feeling about Rackham, okay?...” She sighed, and stood in the corner of the room. I turned back to the body, and just sort of waited for everyone to arrive.

[3]

It started to sink in how surprising it is that Amber even survived this long. She was so miniscule and defenceless, and yet it took up until now for someone to take advantage of that. Maybe she was better off dead at this point, even if it would have been more ideal for none of us to have died at all. What was the point in caring any more? What it meant was another investigation, another chance for all of us to die. I guess only one of us dying would be better than all of us dying, it still felt hard to justify even trying to figure it out.

... Yeah, no, it really wasn’t a good idea to get demotivated, not now, at least. But what happened to Charlotte, anyway?... Maybe she’d just be back with the group or something, but judging from the rule that got added just a bit ago, it wasn’t seeming likely. Still, I hoped that nothing had happened to her, if just out of desperation for our humanity to be preserved despite us being at each other’s throats anyways.

And to think that we could have just not killed anybody in the first place.

[4]

It didn’t take too long for most of the other students to arrive, it was everyone aside from Jo and Charlotte... Though whether the group included everyone or not didn’t matter. I guess I was really just waiting for Archie, since I was used to figuring out these mysteries with someone else to give a second opinion, and while Lucy was fine enough as an assistant, she never seemed nearly as attentive...

“Why?...” I could hear her, specifically out of anyone, which would have seemed surprising if there weren’t so few of us remaining. “Why again?... And why her?...”

“It’s disheartening, yes...” Molly said, letting out a sigh. “She was probably the last one of us left who actually believed we’d stop hurting each other.”

“... But why?!...”

Nobody had an answer. In fact the only people who talked at all in this initial gathering were Lucy and Molly, the rest just sort of looked at it without anything to say. Once the two of them quickly ran out of anything to talk about regarding it, Molly and Dan left, and it seemed Lucy and Rocky would stay behind to make sure the scene isn’t tampered with as usual.

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

But instead, Rocky turned around, and slowly walked off. Didn’t look at any of us as he did.

Seeing the bullet hole in Amber’s forehead, I don’t think any of us were going to stop him and ask him to stay.

“I can stay instead.” Mary said, not making eye contact with anyone else. “I might be able to spot something by staying here for a while, anyway. I don’t find much wandering around, anyway.”

“Thanks?” said Archie, looking unadjusted to Mary offering to assist with the case in such a way.

“... Make sure you figure out what’s happened, okay?”

“Well, that’s what we’re meant to do, anyway.” I forced a somewhat dumb smile. She just groaned and looked into the wall.

[5]

The first thing apparent was the state of the body, the hole in Amber’s forehead being as circular as any other **bullet wound**. The trail of blood seemed to confirm that her body had been **dragged up against the wall** opposite the entrance, and the penguin placed right on her corpse also seemed to show that somebody had **messed with the scene**, whether it was the killer or whoever must have come afterwards, considering that the announcement went off after two people, Mary and I, saw it, implying **a third person was present** before either of us.

... Honestly, I instantly assumed that person was Jo, but jumping to conclusions is poor form, isn’t it?

Aside from the body itself, there were a couple of interesting things strewn about, a **circle of scattered glass shards**, as well as **a revolver** lying in the middle of the room. There were also one or **two long, pale hairs** lying around.

“So...” I said, fixated on the gun, “What do you make of the gun? Archie, whose gun do you think that is?”

“You’re asking a rhetorical question. Are you scared of the answer or something?”

“... I know, but it just feels too obvious. I’m not even sure if that’s Rocky’s gun, would he really just leave it there? Mary’s told you about what happened yesterday, right?”

“There wasn’t a need to tell. Everybody ended up going there and seeing what had happened, aside from you. I don’t think there are any other revolvers in the school, but I suppose we should make sure that Rocky doesn’t have both of his guns, still... If one or two are missing, we’ll be mostly sure that it’s his.”

“And as for the glass?”

“... It’s glass.” Archie glanced at the shards for a second, then at the corpse. “There doesn’t seem to be any bruises or cuts made by anything, so it’s more likely that whatever glass object it came from was just accidently knocked over. It was probably a glass cup, though...” He crouched, and ran a finger along the carpet, in the middle of the shard-covered area. “If that’s the case, the cup must have been empty. The mat’s completely dry.”

“I see.” I looked back at the couple hairs on the ground, which were barely visible within the blue carpet. I scanned the floor to see if there were any other hairs, but the few I did find were yellow and somewhat shorter, most likely Amber’s. “Archie, you’re able to see those hairs, right? They’re really thin, so if you can’t see them, uh, should I pick one up and show you?”

“I can see them. I probably noticed them before you, anyway.”

“... I guess you’re a bit closer to the ground, so that isn’t unlikely, eh?”

He looked at me with the most pained smile imaginable. “Haha, thank you, yes, very funny, thank you. We could all die and you’re joking about me being short.”

“N-no, it’s not that you’re short, it’s that you’re crouching, s-so you’re closer to the ground!”

“... Oh.” He stood up again. He was still shorter than me while standing, though. “... Uh-huh. Okay, I understand.” His expression just seemed really awkward right now, almost a bit fearful that the entire investigation could remain awkward from that one misinterpretation. “... Should we just do this separately and share the evidence we find during the trial?”

“I think it’s better the usual way, since we can talk about things as they happen. The trial environment’s a bit too chaotic to communicate well, so it’s best to get a good idea about the case before that, I guess... Anyway, what do you think of the hair?”

“Is that another rhetorical question? It’s Dan’s hair. Don’t know how or why he dyes it white now, anyway, but it’s his, clearly.”

“And that means he must have been here at some point... But would that be before or after the murder? After all, since the announcement went off after just Mary and I seeing it, either of those is entirely possible.”

“If we see him, we’ll press him for answers then, right?”

“Well, ‘press’ is a little harsh, but we’ll ask him anything we think of by the time we see him next.”

“Okay, and the glass?”

“... It’s glass. I guess a cup got knocked over. I don’t have too much to say about it.”

“If that’s all the physical evidence we have for now, I suppose all we can do is ask around for further testimony... Is there anyone other than Dan or Rocky that you have in mind? Nobody in particular seems to have much to do with the case.”

“If that’s the case... There’s only nine of us left, seven if we don’t count each other, so that’s only five other people. Plus, we might have a shot at finding Charlotte, right?”

“No, we really don’t ‘have a shot’. We spent all day looking for her and there isn’t a single place she could be, other than her room, perhaps, and if that’s the case, she probably isn’t leaving that room until she’s forced to leave, because of the trial and all... But, since it won’t take too long to ask everyone if they know anything about the murder, it’s still probably the best course of action.”

“... What should we ask if we actually do see Charlotte?”

“I don’t think we will.”

Since they were in the same room first, I decided to talk to Mary and Lucy first... Except Mary had already told me what she knew, so I just skipped ahead to asking Lucy.

She was sitting at the eastern wall of the room, scanning through a large book. It looked a bit old and leathery and too big to fit into her clothes, so I assumed she dashed out of the room and got it out from her pad while we weren’t looking. She should be keeping a keen eye on the crime scene... But, if she felt the need to get it at a time like this, maybe it was something important to the case.

“Hey, Lucy, what’s that book you have? What’s it about?” I asked. She seemed very focused, with a little frown, which was surprising since she usually seemed completely unaware of her own existence. Well, that probably sounds a bit harsh, but I honestly thought it was cute... But, point is, she sure wasn’t dazed right now. “Is it something important?”

Realising I was talking to her, a somewhat delayed reaction, she looked up at me and smiled awkwardly.

“It’s nothing, sugar, I’m just looking for something. This is my notebook, there’s an assortment of chemical related details in it.”

“I see. And what are you trying to find in it?”

“... Well... I need to see if I have any notes on the amnesiac thing.” She looked back down, her mood visibly dropping at the mention of it. “It has a very bad aura to it, and so does... The other... Thing...” She shook her head.

“Hush now, don’t stress yourself about it... It’s very good that you’re trying to dig up important information. Take a break if you need to.”

“If there’s time for a break.”, Archie added rather unnecessarily.

“There’s plenty of time,” I said with held back frustration. “But if you find something to do with the current case, make sure you tell everyone, okay Lucy?”

“Well, yeah, that’s why I’m looking now...” She flipped a couple pages over, her hair swishing slightly as she tried to quickly scan through the pages. I had to fight back squealing since it looked really cute... But she continued to speak nonetheless. “Rocky said that he doesn’t remember last night, so... I’m wondering if something happened with the amnesiac that made him forget. That’s why I’m searching for it...”

“Mhm, good job. Keep going, you’re doing great. Would you like a glass of water?”

“So long as it doesn’t break upon the floor like so.” She pointed a gloved finger to the shards we examined earlier.

“... As long as you don’t knock it down, it won’t break, right? I mean, it’s carpet, anyway, it’s kind of soft.”

Archie sighed. “We really don’t have time to get a glass of water, but fine... But first, we should probably do a closer inspection of the room.”

“Wait,” I said, “are you sure there’s something we missed?”

“There might be nothing left to find in the room, yes... But we haven’t checked the drawers or the closet yet. We could find something important there.”

The drawers had a bunch of papers in it, which looked to be the letters Amber was collecting from all of us. We didn’t pay too much attention to it, since there wasn’t any blood or anything on it, it’s not like we could tie it to anything in the case. What was a lot more interesting was the closet, since, what was in it... Was unknown. Because the damn thing wouldn’t budge!

“Should we just give it a quick, steady shove or something?” I proposed, though doubtful about the viability of such a method. “Sometimes that gets it to work.”

“... Not from the looks of it. The way it’s positioned looks intentional. When someone absentmindedly gets a sliding door stuck, it’s usually a slight misplacement, but this one looks like it was **forced into the most awkward position possible**.”

“You’re not even going to try?” Mary scowled at the two of us. “Just giving up already?... You know what, just, just get out of the way.” Walking up to the closet, she began to push and pull at it in a rhythmic manner, clearly not getting anywhere. Still, a soldier’s determination can get you far in life... We just stared at her for a bit, wondering if she’d succeed, but eventually I just went and got Lucy her cup of water, and then we left.

The thing is, once the initial crime scene inspection was over, we said didn’t know where to look for everyone else. Now that there were less of us and more floors accessible, the school felt a lot more empty. So, we decided that we’d just head to wherever we needed to be to find more physical evidence first, and hopefully we’d find one or two people on the way there. Since Lucy mentioned the possibility of the amnesiacs being used on Rocky, we headed to the lab on the fourth floor first.

However, on the way up there, both of us awkwardly stopped walking part-way through the second floor. For some reason, the air quality felt a bit worse in a way that was somewhat hard to describe, a faint and unpleasant odour lingering.

“... Try not to get distracted by it.” Archie said, seemingly having noticed it as well. “We need to focus on getting to the laboratory.”

“Are you sure? I mean, this place usually smells really sterile, like it’s always being cleaned somehow. Like, even the ceiling smells of disinfectant or whatever, like they’re trying to stop any of us from dying of a sickness instead of being killed, as if there’s any significant chance of that even happening... Look, point is, if something smells off, that’s not a good sign, and we need to look into it.”

“It’s probably just rotten food somebody left out...”

The stench seemed to get stronger around the door to the recreation room, and, as expected, opening the door exposed us to another slight level of strength. We didn’t see anything in the room that could be causing the smell. Molly was there, methodically spraying the walls and furniture of the room with an air freshener. Considering that the usual sterility of the school didn’t block out this smell, I doubted that she’d be able to make it go away fully, but she had the right to try, I guess.

Although, since she was there, I figured we’d ought to ask her if she knew anything about what happened last night. She looked really focused on the cleaning though, and considering that none of us were in a good mood whenever somebody died, she could get really cross at us and refuse to talk...

“Hello?” Archie said, as I freaked out for a split second, fearing that Molly would have the worst reaction imaginable. “We’d like to ask you if you witnessed anything yesterday and last night in relation to what’s happened. Anything’s fine.”

She just turned her head around with a face that screamed of a slight amount of bother.

“I haven’t.”

She returned to spraying everything. If only she could be so diligent with looking for evidence... But no matter how much freshener was sprayed about, the smell lingered still, in fact, it somehow felt more rancid than earlier. Trying to pinpoint just where it was coming from was a bit harder with the freshener, definitely, but it overall seemed to be emanating from the vent in the far corner of the ceiling.

“Should we open it and take a look?” I asked, as both of us walked a bit closer.

“... It’s high up, though.”

“We can grab a chair to stand on, we should be able to reach it.”

“It’s still going to be too high!...”

“... For you.”

“... Fine. Go ahead.”

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

The only chairs were the ones at the chess table, and the stool at the piano, but one chair was enough. The screws on the vent were a bit loose, so I didn’t need a screwdriver, although that seemed to imply somebody had already tampered with it. I just thought somebody might have put some smelly old eggs or something up there as a prank on the rest of us. Whatever the case, when I picked the screws off and lowered the grate... Through the slight darkness of that cramped corridor...

[6]

Charlotte was lying there, on her back. Her hat had fallen off, revealing a trail of blood dripping from a bludgeoning on her head, down the metal and even getting a bit on the paper hat.

[7]

She’d been there for a while, judging from the odour reaching its highest intensity here.

“... Another one...” I muttered, placing the grate back to spare the gruesome sight from anyone else’s view (and to avoid potentially triggering another dead body announcement, since I felt like it’d just be cause for a distraction for everyone else).

“Okay, what is it?”

“It’s Charlotte. She’s dead.”

“Bloody hell...” His tone sounded more exasperated than genuinely regretful. I did feel a bit more sorry for Charlotte, considering that I’d seen a calmer, more outgoing side of her earlier, but... Judging how her hat sent her back to her old mode of though, it may have just been another facet of her delusions. We’d never know now, though. Another one of us was gone, just like that.

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

“Wait, dead?” Molly looked over at us. I suppose it took a dead corpse to distract her from her cleaning. “I can’t believe it... No, I mean, I can believe it, but are we really allowed to kill two people at once?”

“We were told that's allowed this morning." Archie noted.

"Ah... I'm stressed out of my mind, and so is everyone else, so forgive me if I forget something."

"But it was only thirty minutes ago." I said. Molly just glared at me.

"They could have been killed by two different people, though.” Archie resumed, “Although I’m not sure if that would mean two different executions for the one trial.”

“I guess we’d need to ask directly how that would work.” I said, for once in my life hoping that Monoyaki would show up. And, as if to scorn me, he did not. He probably knew that it would annoy me slightly. “... We can ask him at the start of the trial if we need to.”

“Either prospect sounds macabre...” Molly commented. “Either kill two people at once, or have to live with someone who we know is a murderer...”

“Well, it could just be a single killer, anyway. If you find any clues about Charlotte’s death around here, pay close attention to them, alright?”

“As if I wouldn’t...”

[8]

We continued on our way, now reaching the third floor of the school. Whenever I passed through this floor, whether it was my destination or just on the way further up, I’d look out the window into the garden, since being cooped up in blank white halls and rooms was mind-numbing. The short moment of happiness from seeing a recreation of the outside world would always be crushed with the reminder that it was only a recreation, and yet I always looked, every time, thinking that the satisfactory burst would be worth more than the lingering sadness that followed.

Although this time, I was moderately thankful that I looked, since I saw Dan there. He was meditating, in fact it seemed he was almost always meditating there. It makes sense to meditate outside, at least, when you don’t think about it, considering that, if the whole point was to eliminate outside stimuli, the quiet of his soundproof bedroom would be far better suited to such a task...

But, nevermind that. Having seen him sitting there, clearly not busy, we entered the garden (or exited the building... Yeah, if only.).

“... Well?” I said. “Do you wanna get his attention, Archie?”

“He looks so peaceful... I know we have to get his attention, but are you sure we can’t ask him on the way back down?”

“I thought you were worried about how much time we have...”

“I mean, yes, I am, but... Are we even going to be able to snap him out of his trance?”

“I can hear you.” Dan said, with a neutral tone as always, although I could’ve sworn that he smiled a moment after speaking.

“... Um, good.” I said, trying to get the conversation on a route to substantial evidence. “So, did you see anything strange happen last night? Anything around Amber’s room or the room that Rocky was locked inside of?”

“I was not outside of my room at the time.”, he continued to speak, not bothering to open his eyes for us. “However... I was focusing my meditation that night on manifesting an alter unto the material plane, and I am unaware of how successful it may or may not have been.”

“... And what does that mean in English?”

“I don’t want to hold you up for hours explaining it... But I won’t be surprised if someone else says they saw me **outside of my room**. A spiritual clone, well, not a clone, more like... Not exactly a projection, moreso... A spirit, taking my physical form as an effigy in our world. If anybody claims to have seen me, then that’s what they are talking about.”

“... What?”

Whatever he was trying to say, Dan had basically claimed that any sightings of him last night weren’t actually him because of... Spiritual things. If he was telling the truth about his whereabouts, then we wouldn’t have to worry, since it’s not like there was actually an alter ego running about the school. Besides, if his ramblings had any basis in reality, we’d probably still see this weird spirit version of himself or whatever it was supposed to be. Seeing as neither me or Archie could discern why he thought that this esoteric ritual he was doing would have any effect on the case... We moved along.

At last, the fourth floor. With no more distractions, we entered the laboratory without pause.

The laboratory itself was unchanged on the overall level, which is why I looked at the vials straight away, to check the amnesiac levels. **They were all full**, however. There were many of them, yet not a single drop had been used... There was one vial which was now half-empty, but it wasn’t an amnesiac. **The red ‘happiness’ has visibly been used**, or at least taken and poured into something else, somewhere else.

“... Is this a good thing or a bad thing, Jane?”

“... I don’t know what happiness does, how am I supposed to answer that?”

“Well I would’ve thought it a relief to see the amnesiacs hadn’t been used, but it actually raises far more questions than it answers. Does Rocky really not remember what happened last night?”

“Well, we don’t know the effects of happiness, so... Was he even administered happiness at all? That might be jumping to conclusions... Happiness might not have even been used for anything in the actual murder.”

“Well, something definitely happened in the computer room last night to make Rocky get so aggressive. Whether happiness has something to do with that is just something we’ll have to try and uncover by heading straight to the room itself. I honestly wonder why the computer room even had a lock installed on it in the first place... I mean, a lock that’s operated from the outside, too. All the locks in the school I’ve seen so far need a key on the outside, and the keyless switch is on the inside. Then again, with the whole ‘artsy’ feel the architecture in this place has... I’d understand if they got impractical with it.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with art getting a little impractical...”

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

The computer room was a **fucking mess**. Keyboards smashed into pieces with keys littering the floor, hard drives on their sides, some of them with bullet holes, in fact, most of them had bullet holes, including the main computer at the front that we used to dig up those documents on that strange Derek Frankson fellow. The whole place just felt like a warzone that you wanted to evacuate as fast as possible, and it didn’t help that Rocky himself was just standing at the far corner of the room, looking out the window. Just existing. It gave me the exact same feeling I had weeks ago when I was afraid he was going to kill someone, when he didn’t want to give up his firearms... I didn’t really know what to think of that attitude now that someone had actually gotten shot. But he seemed docile right now. The room really didn’t feel docile at all, but he seemed docile enough.

The air of regret that coloured the whole room just made me want to leave, but of course, we had to stay, if only for a moment or two.

I didn’t say anything to Archie, like asking whether or not we should even talk to Rocky at all. It felt like talking at all was hard to do to anybody aside from Rocky, really, and I’m not exactly sure how to explain why that was, perhaps not wanting to seem like I was talking behind his back in a more literal sense. He would have been able to hear us talk, it wouldn’t be ‘behind his back’ in that sense, really he would have heard our footsteps entering the room anyways. But the way he was just sitting there gave a force that both repelled and beckoned. So I walked up to him. Not slowly, since I supposed that would only make things feel more tense, just a walk. A simple, calm walk, to keep myself calm as well. Looking behind me, Archie was just standing back, as if he was unsure if Rocky could suddenly snap again. He wouldn’t have a reason to, would he? It honestly began to feel like Archie was throwing me away as you would a packet of worms into a lake, sent only to tempt fate and reveal whatever the hell lurked beneath.

Which was, of course, an extreme exaggeration of the situation. All I needed to do is ask Rocky what he remembers about last night.

He’s a human. There’s no reason to be afraid of him.

“Mornin’.” said Rocky, sensing that I probably wouldn’t be able to say anything first.

“Yes, good morning. I’d like to ask about-”

“**I killed her.** Don’t bother. This is a formality.”

“... S-so... You’re saying that you remember killing Amber last night?”

“Didn’t remember. But I killed her. Only possibility. You heard what happened. You’ve seen how things are. I’m the killer.” He finally turned his head to make eye contact with me, although I had trouble reading his expression, perhaps from stress, perhaps because he was trying to mask any uncertainty or emotion. “Thanks for comin’ up here, I guess.”

“But... We haven’t discussed all of the evidence yet. There’s still a chance-”

“Don’t need that, don’t need your wide-eyed talk about how there’s always hope. Wastin’ your time more than mine. Don’t have much time left, but I don’t have anything to do with it, so I don’t mind. But you don’t need to.”

“Look, I... I know there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence, and that there’s a gun on the scene of the crime, but-”

“MY gun. I only have one now.”, he noted as he reached to pull one out and show me, but hesitated, figuring that it was pointless since his holsters were always visible. There was just one pistol, sitting there, never daring to shoot a soul. “Don’t remember where the other one went last night, but I know where it is now. You and I know it. Look... Jane, I don’t want you worryin’ about all this. I’m just tryin’ to save everyone else some time. Can’t make up for what I did, might as well speed along the process.”

“... If you’re so certain about it, and want to speed it along as quickly as possible, why don’t you just shoot yourself now?”

“Jane, what?!” Archie yelled, though it went from a yell to a sort of confused whimper. He just stuttered and backed off again.

“... Mind games, huh?” Rocky chuckled softly, as if he were convincing himself that it’d be the last moment of entertainment he’d have. “You’ve got a point, but don’t go thinkin’ I’m too yella to go through with it. I just gotta send a message to everyone at the trial first, make sure they know what’s goin’ on. Gotta make sure they learn from this.”

“Learn what exactly? If you think it’s obvious that you did it, why do you need to prove it further?”

“... Listen, Jane. When you’ve got... Well physical strength, let’s put it like that.” Somehow, his deep western accent was starting to drop, his breathing got sporadic. “When you’re stronger than someone else... When you’re towering over them, when you’re armed and they’re not, that means you’re obliged to protect them. Right? You agree with that.”

“Well, I suppose it’s a given...”

“Now, imagine that the opposite happens to you. Just picture the one man who has power over you, the one man who’s supposed to take care of you when nobody else is left for you, picture that man who doesn’t give a shit. He leaves you with enough food to survive, a dusty collection of the same five decades-old VHS tapes, and hopes that the cowboys on the screen provide a better mentor than he ever could be. And if you’re lucky, he won’t thrash you when he’s had a bad day at work.” He stopped talking, breathed, and cracked his neck. “And then he sends you off to military school to learn how to fend for yourself, or some over excuse to get rid of you. And once you can defend yourself, you inevitably just shoot some little girl who has no way to defend herself. Fucking ironic, huh?”

“... I-”

“Nah, don’t worry, I’m not expectin’ an in-depth response. You just seemed curious. If anyone else asks you about it, just don’t try to blame anyone for the way things are. My old man was probably thrashed around as a kid as well.” ... After a few more outward breaths, he stood. “Someone’s gotta break the cycle eventually, huh?” He shrugged, brushed past me, and left, saying “Hope the room’s not a pain to clean.”.

...

(SOUNDTRACK RESUMES)

“Hey, Archie, there’s still some cactus juice left in the cup by the PC.”

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

“... Jane...” He was shaking a little.

“Okay, if you need to take a breather, just go outside for a bit. I understand. Just remember this...” I picked up the cup and looked inside, to make perfectly sure I'd seen it right. Cactus juice, except clearly tinted a slightly redder shade. “**There’s happiness in his drink**, Archie. Somebody spiked it yesterday.”

“... Okay...” He shuffled out of the room, leaving me with the cup and computers.

Needless to say, I wasn’t keen on drinking it, seeing as it’s the root cause of all of this. Whether or not Lucy’s findings in her book would bring up anything about happiness, Archie and I had finally figured it out, or at least part of it. A chemical able to send anyone into an uncontrollable, violent rage...

Who would make such a thing?

Probably someone who would be willing to make a bunch of teenagers try to kill each other.

But what purpose does the chemical even serve?...

There were more urgent matters to solve, but if we could figure out this liquid’s role in the bigger picture, then we’d maybe be on to the real truth about this whole situation.

[9]

After a few minutes to myself, I figured that I’d go down to the bottom floor so that I wouldn’t have to dash down in time for the trial whenever the announcement came. So I left the computer lab.

“Morning, Jane.”

I hadn’t noticed him by the door, but Jo was leaning there nonchalantly. I don’t know if he had just shown up, but if he was there earlier then he probably heard a lot of what went on inside the lab just then. But, he didn’t seem like he was interested in that in particular, since he waited for me to come out specifically.

“... I don’t have all day, so if you’d excuse me-”

“I’m aware. But I’ve got info you might want to get your paws on.”

“Please make it quick.”

“Up up up...” He waggled his finger at me. “Law of reciprocity, Jane. There’s something I have to hear from you too.”

I sighed. “Please understand that I’m cautious to give away anything to you, so please make sure it’s nothing super personal, I won’t fall for any obvious blackmail methods.”

“Oh, no, don’t worry. It’s just something that I think all of us could use a bit of a hint for, something that just doesn’t make sense.” He looked down into his fingers, stroking his thumb across the other four, some meaningless movement that was probably just there to make me paranoid that he was going to scratch me to death or something. “... I was the last person who Amber had asked for a letter, the ones we were given by Monoyaki. Now, as you always should, I asked her why she was doing this, and she said it was to copy down each student’s handwriting. Now, I’m not entirely sure how nobody before me pointed out how it made no sense... I guess people were afraid of hurting her feelings...”

“What didn’t make sense?”

“The handwriting thing. Oh, don’t you remember? Those weren’t our letters, they were from our parents. And they were PURRinted from a computer, not handwritten, either.”

[10]

Shit. How did I not think of that? Sending Amber on that errand to collect letters like that was absolute nonsense, wasn’t it? Didn’t I think that when I handed it to her? Didn’t I see the typing that wasn’t mine, that wasn’t even handwriting?... But...

“... And, Jane, guess what? I asked her who told her to do it, who she collected the first letter from, since there was no reasonable way Amber would make such a blunder on her own... No, such a manipulatable little girl must have been doing it under ‘advice’, just like she had taken orders from good old Sadie, way back before the first investigation... And, of course, you and I know that the first person she got the letter from was you, Jane.” He grinned, baring teeth, as if gloating over nothing in particular. “Now, since the poor maiden’s no longer alive to testify just what went on when she saw you, I’d like to ask why on Earth you’d ask her to collect everybody’s letters. There must have been something for you in it, no? The rule of reciprocity doesn’t apply when you’re manipulating someone, like the tiny puppet doll she always was... So, do you wanna ‘fess up?”

“... It was an honest mistake, Jo.”

“Ah yeah, of course, the impeccable detective who’s the main engine behind each investigation, she made an honest mistake when she thought that our handwriting was somewhere deep within our parents’ typing. Not so impeccable at this very moment, I’d vouch.”

“Jo, I’m serious! I didn’t realise it! It’s not like I had anything to gain out of making her collect letters, like... If I was trying to find out what everybody’s letters said, I would’ve told her to bring them all to me.”

“And that’s what you told her, isn’t it?”

“It really isn’t! Look, I just didn’t need to keep that letter, okay? It was just a letter...”

“Hmm.” He tsked while doing the finger stroke thing again. “The one connection you have to loved ones, just a letter... You aren’t in a very good place with your caretakers, then?”

“Shut up!” I yelled, just quiet enough not to echo into the lower floors, but enough to make me feel like I was being assertive. The subject of the yell didn’t flinch for a second. “Look, stop with the dumb psychological shit you’re trying to pull on me... I have a fine relationship with my aunt, alright?”

“... Your aunt?” He smirked, and adjusted the two spires of his hair as if they were perky little cat ears. “And not your mother or father?... My oh my, Jane, did something happen?”

“... Shut up...” The assertiveness had vanished, no matter how much I tried to bring it back. “It’s nothing important...”

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

“Unimportant? Well, I’d assume you have ‘a fine relationship’ with your parents, too? Or are they, perhaps...”

... Mother...

“... I told you the information you need. Just tell me what you know and shut the actual fuck up.”

“My, imagine if your mother could hear you say those naughty, nasty words, Jane!”

“Just tell me...!”

“Alright, don’t be so... Catty.” He readjusted the ears back to their original angle, still smirking. “I’ll be straight to the point. **Dan killed Amber. I saw him outside Amber’s door**, greeting her like a good pal. It was dark that night, as usual, so I couldn’t make it out entirely, but same height, same hair, sounded like a boy. No hat, so it wasn’t Rocky. That’s the gist of it.”

“Y-you’re sure? Why were you even up at night?”

“Can’t think of a time in my life when I haven’t been sure. It’s Dan. And Molly gave me a note to turn on the washing machine, she forgot to or something. She wrote that she’s ‘afraid of the dark’, hah. Point is, if you pick someone other than Dan and we all die, well, won’t be my fault, huh?” He laughed despite bringing up the possibility of his life and death being out of his control, and then proceeded to skip off like he’d gotten high off of catnip.

I hate him. I know I sound like a toddler with that simplistic wording, but I really hate him.

[11]

“Aaaaalrighty! Time's up! I’d like everyone to head to the back half of the hallways on the ground floor, thank you very much!”

I was already at the ground floor this time. Archie was there before me, and so was Jo, well, he had just been walking ahead of me, anyway. But there we were, waiting for the goat to show his face. It wasn’t long before all of us were there.

[12]

“Uwehehe, impressive.” Monoyaki marched triumphantly between us, like a dog at a talent show. “Looks like you guys got here faster than ever! It’s a record!”

“And why does that matter?” Mary asked, sounding like she was embarrassed that her class hadn’t made a new record every time so far.

“Well, I like to see our students become more disciplined over time. I’m a CEO, you know, efficiency and optimisation is the spear of business!”

Lucy sighed, tilting her head. “Making a bunch of teenagers kill each other hardly seems profitable...”

“But it’s fun, eh? Well, whatever, enough doddering, let’s get down to business!” He knocked on the wall, and it opened up to reveal the lift. “And I’m quite happy you were in the right spot this time, too.”

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

The ride down was as quiet as ever. The lift definitely felt drastically emptier than before, probably thanks to two people having died in one case. How many people have we actually told in regards to?...

“Oh yeah, Charlotte also died.” Archie says, apparently not realising the awkwardness of pointing that out during a tense moment when we usually were quiet.

“... I was wondering where she’d gotten to.” Jo said to nobody in particular, snickering to himself.

“It feels very odd to be talking here,” Molly said, “can we be quiet please?”

“Nothin’ says we can’t.” Rocky said with a shrug, with eyes that screamed silently and the uncharacteristically hopeless smirk.

“Is there a need to?” Dan asked without any variance to his usual speech.

“I suppose it helps.” I said, trying to ready myself for the trial. The elevator ride felt longer than usual.

[13]

And so we reached the bottom, Monoyaki sitting excitedly in his throne as always. The grass around the fountain was basically dead now, going brown with not a drop left. The fountain itself had gone dry, and there were numerous cracks in its stone. Everyone took their places, accompanied by the hung portraits that numbered almost as many as the living. Thus far, our wider community had been ravaged so much by our individual need for freedom that we had resorted to murder this many times, to the point where half of us were dead. It felt more numbing than disturbing, but perhaps that was because my nerves were already getting to me as I tried to focus. This was shaping up to be the toughest case yet, a lot of incriminating evidence but no unbeatable proof of either main suspect I had. I genuinely wasn’t sure if we’d make it out alive this time, but hey, if we can’t do that, at least one of us gets to walk free, right?

Well, that sounds a bit sinister, but my mother always told me to cling onto any and all positive aspects of any and all situations.

... But she wouldn’t want it to end here, either. I adjusted my beret a little, as if I were trying to seem slightly more confident, and gripped the fence before me, half-prepared for anything and everything that comes my way.

Continued in Chapter 4 - Class Trial.