Danganronpa: Hope for the Hopeless/Chapter 4 - Deadly Life

## Story

*(Deep breaths)*

That was what I kept thinking to myself as I took deep breaths and managed to look at my classmates to see how they were doing. Sure enough, they started to come around as well. Wakuni unclenched his fists before the other two overcame their initial reactions, but Machi opened her eyes soon after and even Koike managed to shake her head and get up once everyone else started to recover.

Not that any of us completely recovered. The possibility that Saeki would be murder had stung in the back of my mind ever since Koike explained what happened to her, but now the reality stared us in the face. And as I looked around, the melancholy that we all felt was almost palpable.

With all of that said, however, it was clear that Machi had it the worst. Though she looked down at the corpse, he arms remained crossed and she refused to so much as speak up or look away. All the while, silence hung in the air until after what had to be a minute, someone spoke up.

“Hey Machi,” Wakuni said in a surprisingly calm and gentle tone. “I know we don’t always see eye to eye, but I know she was important to you. I mean, everyone can see it. So I’m sorry you have to go through this and if you need anything-”

“Shut up,” Machi retorted. Koike opened her mouth in response, but before she could say anything, Machi continued. This time, by turning towards us and yelling. “This hasn’t happened to any of you so you don’t get to pretend that you know what this is like!”

“But uh-” Koike began with some hesitation in her tone. “Eto died last time. She was pretty close to a few people.”

In response, Koike received one of Machi’s trademark glares and looked away. But like before, time passed, and Machi’s expression softened to a simple frown. And luckily enough, that seemed to stir her to calm down and assess the situation because she spoke up once more.

“I- uh- alright. I’m sorry I snapped at you Koike. Wakuni has a way of pushing me over the edge” Machi said before she sighed and shook her head. “Anyways, I think we’ve spent too much time pitying ourselves. We do have an investigation to conduct after all.”

“No worries Machi,” Koike assured her.

And with that, the entire group seemed to stir out of the trance that we seemed to be in. Granted the investigation never truly left my mind, but this was the first time since finding Saeki that I bothered to look around my environment. And sure enough, that's what I did. Starting with looking at the others to determine how to delegate the tasks.

“Koike, you’re the Super High School Level Diver,” Wakuni reluctantly began as the first obvious need for the investigation came to mind. “I hate to ask this of you but is there any way that you could retrieve Saeki? I know you’ve been through a lot, but the alternative is not being able to examine her closely enough to properly verify the cause and time of death.”

As soon as he said it, I winced. Furthermore, when Koike grimaced, looked at the body, shuddered, and looked back at us, Wakuni followed suit. At that point, it was painfully obvious based on the look on his face that it wasn’t an idea that he wanted to push further. But truthfully, it was already too late to take the question back and he brought up a valid concern as well.

“I- I can’t,” Koike solemnly declared as she shook her head. “It's not that I don’t want to. I don’t want to of course but I would if I could for the sake of the investigation. But I would freeze to death if I went in there.”

“Are you sure Koike?” Wakuni continued as he rubbed the back of his head with his right hand. “I know you’re still recovering from what happened to you but you might be our only chance of being able to properly examine the victim.”

“I really can’t do it Wakuni. I would die of hypothermia if I swam in the lake. And even if I made it out, I would die of shock the moment I left the water,” Koike replied as she looked him in his eyes pitifully. “It doesn’t matter anyways. None of us can perform an autopsy to the extent that your brother can and he’s busy saving Senji after-”

“Hey, it’s going to be okay. Senji is in my brother’s care which means he’s going to be just fine.” Wakuni reassured as Koike trailed off before clenching his fists again. “We’re going to find the culprit. We always do. And they are going to pay dearly for it.”

“It may be harder without a proper autopsy though,” I surmised with a sigh. “The Monokuma files have always been cryptic in some regards and I was actually planning on taking pictures to show Yakawa. I still believe we can do this, I have no reason not to after all, but this is going to make the class trial harder.”

I brought my right hand to the bridge of my nose. It was unfortunate, but Koike seemed to be quite adamant about not being able to retrieve Saeki’s body. It was understandable, I had no reason not to trust her, and I wouldn’t have blamed her if she could but chose not to drag Saeki to the surface. But at the same time, it meant that we would have to rely solely on the Monokuma file for the time of death and other important details. Furthermore, it meant that we bothered someone who already suffered enough for nothing.

*(I guess we’re doing this with blind trust in whatever Monokuma gives us then.)*

Luckily enough however, Machi spoke up as she began to remove her backpack. “No matter Koike. As much as I hated this possibility, I actually came prepared for it.”

At that, I turned my gaze towards Machi and opened my mouth to ask what she meant. But before I could, I heard something move in the snow and looked down at the source. And out of the corner of my eyes, I saw everyone else doing the same. In that moment, silence fell on us once more as we all watched in anticipation and I narrowed my eyes.

It didn’t take me long to figure out what the source of movement was. I thought about it for a moment, but the answer came to me almost immediately and I suspected that it did for everyone else as well. So, when Monokuma cam bursting out of the snow spinning around and with his right fist raised triumphantly in the air, he barely elicited a reaction. And the memory of whatever happened the last time he did that came to mind and I took a right step back, Monokuma himself didn’t come as a shock.

“Did I hear that someone can’t reach the body?” Monokuma began in an overly dramatic tone the moment he landed. “Have no fear, you’re headmaster has come to the rescue!”

“Does that mean you’re going to retrieve Saeki’s body?” I asked as I crossed my arms and mentally prepared myself for the ensuing headache when he answered that he wouldn’t.

“I will once the class trial is over.” Monokuma replied with a shrug. “But I am not going to do it for the investigation. How could I claim to be an impartial judge if I messed with the investigation? Besides, I’ve brought something just as useful.”

“The Monokuma file?” Machi guessed in a deadpan tone.

“The Monokuma file!” Monokuma confirmed apparently choosing to ignore the palpable irritation present in everyone around him. “Monokuma file number four has just been added to your ElectroIDs. If I were you, I’d pull that sucker up and look through it like my life depended on it. Because yours might!”

I took another glance around at everyone. Nobody seemed particularly happy with Monokuma’s answer. In fact, Machi and Wakuni were both glaring at the bear while the latter grumbled something. In fact, a few retorts popped into mind. But in the end, I realized that they would be both fruitless and a waste of time. So instead, I complied and pulled out my ElectroID. From there, I turned the thing on, tapped the Monokuma eye icon, flipped through the case menu, and tapped the fourth case on the selection screen. Sure enough, it pulled up.

Monokuma File 4:

Subject: Saeki Masu

Height: 5’8”

Weight: 112 lbs

Blood Type: O+

Birthday: August 21st

The subject was discovered at the lake around 2:12pm. The estimated time of death appears to be between 8:00am and 1:10pm. The cause of death appears to be either trauma or drowning. Additionally, the subject shows several secondary injuries including the loss of her right eye, the loss of all of her fingers, various lacerations as well as bruises all over her body, and two electrical burn marks on her wrists. However, the exact causes and sources are unknown at the time of the investigation.

As soon as I finished, I frowned and shook my head in disgust. At the very least, the time of death was within a narrower timeframe. But once again, the Monokuma file didn’t really give me anything that I didn’t already know from immediate observation. Moreover, it opened up questions as to what was Saeki’s cause of death. But worst of all, it just glazed over the fact that Saeki showed signs of being tortured and might have very well died of the pain by the file’s own admission.

*(Poor Saeki.)*

“What the heck?” Machi commented interrupting my train of thought and causing me to look up at the group. And when I did, I noticed that everyone was looking down at their ElectroIDs and presumably at the Monokuma file. Regardless, Machi continued without so much as looking up from her own ElectroID. “Monokuma, at least tell us the actual cause of death. This is an autopsy report, it should give us the results of an autopsy.”

At that, I looked for Monokuma, or at least, in the direction where he had been. But when I looked, he was gone. And in his place was a depression in the snow. To be honest, it took me a second to realize that he was gone. But when I did, it wasn’t even remotely difficult to connect the dots as to where he went.

“I think he’s gone Machi,” Koike somberly chimed in as she looked up from her own ElectroID.

In response, we all put up our ElectroIDs and Machi spoke up. Albeit with obvious irritation in her tone. “Figures. It's just like him to run away leaving us with more questions than answers. Lazy bastard.”

“Well he did say that he wanted to talk to everyone,” I surmised. I wasn’t happy about it, but it had to be the truth. “He’s probably in a rush to hand them out and get going to the next group. Which likely explains why he didn’t leave one of his usual annoying last remarks.”

There was just a short pause after that as Machi bit her lip, Koike nodded once in what I could only guess was agreement at my observation, and Wakuni crossed both of his arms. But, the silence ended shortly after and it ended just as quickly as it started when Machi spoke up.

“Well the Monokuma file was a dead end. So I guess the only thing left to do is search the crime scene ourselves,” Machi finally explained with what sounded like a frustrated sigh. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be sifting through my backpack for a drone that I think should give us a better view of the crime scene.”

“I’ll be searching near the rock for clues.” Wakuni remarked before taking a glance over to the jagged rock that was surrounded by the various tools that were presumably torture implements. As soon as he did, he shuddered. But he recollected himself.

“I- I guess I’ll take a quick look near the shore of the lake to see if we can find the rest of- Saeki.” Koike reluctantly explained as she looked down at the ground once more. “This is just horrible. It's hard to believe that someone would do something like this to Saeki. The last murders, as regrettable as they were, were just murders. But whoever did this to Saeki went out of their way to make her suffer.”

“I know Koike. But we’re going to find out who did this,” I reassured her as convincingly as I could. “You know we will do everything we can to make sure Saeki receives justice.”

Machi and Wakuni both nodded in agreement and with that. Two things happened. First, everyone split off to perform their chosen tasks. And second, I considered what I was going to do to contribute to the investigation.

*(Probably help everyone else like I always do. The only question is, where should I start?)*

I looked around. Machi was a promising starting point given that she and her robot could start searching the premises as soon as she finished. But another thought came to the front of my mind. Namely, the thought that it might be best for Koike to explain to us what happened before she was knocked out.

And so, I asked as gently as I could before anyone could disperse too far. “Wait. Before we all split up, is there any way that you would be willing to explain what happened to you Koike? I know you’ve been through a lot and I know these things aren’t fun to relive but-”

“But it's important to the investigation. I get it.” Koike said before she stopped, turned around, and continued. “You did it last time so I suppose it's only fair.” Koike swallowed for a moment and closed her eyes before opening them back up and sighing. “Okay, so this is what happened. You all saw me leave after Senji earlier this morning. Well I found him, he appreciated the gesture, and I spent some time with him. But after some time, he claimed that he didn’t sleep well last night and that he needed time to rest so I left him alone. Not long after that, Saeki approached me about Senji’s behavior and arranged a meeting where we could discuss the possibility of changing his mind. I already told you this but she told me that she explored the mountain this morning.”

Koike sighed. If I had to guess, she was coming to the point of the story where everything turned sour.

Sure enough, when she continued, her tone shifted to a more somber one. “I uh- actually complied with your rule Nishi. I told Senji about the meeting place although I didn’t tell him why we were meeting. I imagine Saeki told someone as well. She never told me who but I assume the person she told was male since Senji was nearly killed and- well I’ll explain why they had to be male in a second. Anyways, when the time came, I went to the coat room and opened my locker. But I heard a noise coming from behind me. I turned around just in time to see someone step out of the men’s coa room. And after that, all I can remember is waking up in the incinerator room. I wish I had more to tell you.”

“Well, that isn’t your fault. You were probably drugged before you had a chance to register what happened,” Wakuni chimed in with a dismissive wave of her right hand. “That said though, if you remember anything, it could be really helpful to us.”

“Do you remember who they looked like Koike?” Machi spoke up while unzipping her backpack that was now rested on the ground. “What was he wearing? Was his face covered? You know, the standard details.”

“Uh- well,” Koike began as she scratched the back of her head in what must have been nervousness, paused, and looked up at her. “I didn’t get a very good look at them. The had a bulky build I think but they were practically covered in clothes that I hadn’t seen anyone wear before. I can only guess that they came from one of the lodge’s theatres. But I think I saw bits of a dark blue coat underneath their top layer of clothes.”

I nodded and made a mental note of what she said. It didn’t help much, but it did prove that the culprit was male. Furthermore, the bulky appearance was likely due to wearing multiple layers of clothing. Either that or Koike isn’t remembering the situation correctly. But for now I opted to believe that she was correct.

“Well it's too bad that they were smart enough to cover their face,” Wakuni grumbled. “But since our suspects had to be male in order to access the men’s coat room, at least we have our suspects narrowed down to Senji, Tanabe, and Sanda. And even then, it's probably safe to exclude Senji unless you think he’d stab himself.”

“Stab?!” Koike exclaimed as her skin tone lost some of its color. I winced. “What happened to him!”

“Well he’s safe with Yakawa now as you already know,” I emphasized before shooting a glare at Wakuni. “But someone stabbed him in the back near his right shoulder blade with a kitchen knife. Furthermore, I would also like to point out that while I don’t necessarily think Yakawa or Wakuni are behind anything, Wakuni needs to at least acknowledge that he and his brother are on the list of suspects as well.”

“Seriously Nishi?” Wakuni defended.

“It's nothing personal,” I replied earnestly but seriously as I ended my glare at him. “I’m not accusing you or your brother of anything, I’m just saying that we can’t just cross you two off the list of people who could have done it. I’m sure you know by now that we need to be thorough about this.”

“Point taken. I should probably tell you my alibi shouldn’t I?” Wakuni relented before biting his tongue, pausing, and continuing. “After what happened with Sasori, I decided that it would be beneficial to search the burned down shed and destroy whatever possible motives I could find. You know, just in case something was laying around. Anyways, I finally got around to it after breakfast, ran into Machi at the shed, and got into a heated argument with Machi which she started. Basically, Machi and I have alibis for the entire time this could have happened.”

“I can confirm that. Annoyingly enough, I went to the shed for the same reason and spent the entire time with Wakuni up to the point where you cried out. Though I would like to point out that Wakuni started the argument,” Machi remarked while only sparing a passing glance away from what she was doing. “I have a feeling that he only crossed his brother off the list of suspects because of personal bias though.”

*(They still can’t agree with each other, but at least they have alibis.)*

“Yakawa dedicated his life to saving others. Killing someone, torturing her, and trying to kill two other people is something that he would never do,” Wakuni argued as he clenched his hands into fists once more and brought the right one up to show us. “Besides that, I saw him headed to-”

At that, he cut himself off, dropped his attitude, and covered his mouth with his right hand. If I had to guess, it was because he saw his brother somewhere that didn’t look good in terms of the investigation. But of course, his silence wasn’t helping matters either. And I nearly said as much before Machi spoke up.

“I don’t know where Wakuni saw his brother, but I’m guessing it was in the storage room since I thought I saw him headed there on my way to the shed.” Machi speculated calmly enough. Sure enough, it earned her a reluctant nod from Wakuni.

“That doesn’t mean he did it though right?” Koike chimed in with more than a hint of fear in her tone. “Senji isn’t necessarily with the person who tried to kill him earlier, right?”

“There’s always a chance but I doubt he’s in any danger. Even if it turns out to be Yakawa, which it might not be, it would look way too suspicious for him to hurt Senji.” I reassured as best as I could before looking around for a way to change the subject. Luckily enough, I found one. “Machi, when is your drone going to be ready?”

“Approximately now,” Machi replied as she pulled the machine in question out of her backpack and snapped one last piece into place with an audible click. “It might take some time, but this thing comes with a camera that can give us a much clearer view of Saeki. I can’t make promises, but it should be able to solve our current problem. Well, the one with not being able to conduct a thorough examination anyways.”

And so, Machi laid the drone down gently on the snow, pulled out a black remote with a grey antennae, several buttons, and a blank blue screen to what must have controlled the black quad rotor drone, and presumably turned the thing on. Because within seconds, the engines on the thing buzzed to life and it lifted off the ground with a surprisingly little amount of noise. Shortly after that, it flew upwards into the air towards the ice shelf and Machi lowered her right hand which carried the remote to her side.

“You all should split up. I’ll make sure you get the pictures you need and call you back when it's ready,” Machi asserted as she calmly but flatly looked away from her device for a few moments. “The drone should be able to search the place without my input but I’m going to stay close by and make sure nothing happens to it.”

“I guess that drone is pretty important to you huh,” Koike chimed in. “I suppose I can’t blame you. I can only imagine the amount of effort you put into those things.”

“Actually no. There are plenty of my creations that I’m proud of but this is just a generic drone with a camera attached to it. I’ve made dozens since we were abducted,” Machi casually dismissed. “It's just that this is the only one I brought with me and I want the investigation to go through without a hitch. Saeki was so annoying, I won't stress that enough, but she cared. She cared about everyone and someone went, tortured her, and killed her. So if there is anything that I can do to help you all find the monster who did it, I’m going to do it. Now, no offense but scram. We all have stuff we have to do and I’ll let you all know when I’m finished.”

And that’s what we did. Wakuni started heading over to the rock while Koike headed right along the shore of the lake. And as for me, I briefly considered making some sort of remark to Machi, but shook my head and decided not to. After all, someone that I had no doubt was close to her just turned up dead. So, I instead pulled out my ElectroID and headed over to where Wakuni was looking.

Sure enough, there was more than enough to warrant a picture. I started with the rock itself by taking a picture of the entire thing and notably making sure to include the light grey rings on the face of the rock near where someone’s wrists or waist line would have been. After that, I looked down at the ground and took a picture of the crimson stained wire next to the rock. Though when I did, something caught my eye.

*(The blood looks almost frozen over. I wonder how long it takes for blood to freeze in this temperature.)*

If I had to give a gross estimate, I would have said very soon after the person died. The cold probably didn’t bite into me as much as the others thanks to my coat and having something to preoccupy my mind, but it was obvious that we would freeze if we stayed outside for too long. That was Monokuma’s threat to us earlier after all. Still, I made a mental note to ask Yakawa later since he definitely knew better than I did.

And that was when I heard Wakuni take a picture of the footsteps headed towards the lake with his own ElectroID camera. As soon as he did, he drew a deep breath and shook his head in what I could only assume was disgust.

“I don’t get why someone would do this. I mean, I don’t like it but I understand that the motives drive people to kill each other. But this is just cruel and quite frankly, awful.” Wakuni muttered to me. “It almost makes me wish the killer didn’t leave all of this junk around the crime scene. I mean, it possibly helps us find out who did it but it's horrible.”

“I hate to say it but prefer this to no evidence. That said, you bring up a good point. Whoever did this left everything behind for us to find which means either the murder was rushed or-” My eyes widened with realization for a moment. “Or that it might be intentional. I honestly can’t tell which right now but it would help if we discerned the reason why everything was left behind.”

At that, I took two more pictures. The first was a picture of the various tools around the rock. Namely, the serrated knife drenched in slightly frozen blood itself, the jumper cables connected to the standard electrical box that looked fairly normal save for frozen blood on the ends of the wires, and Saeki’s coat itself which lay gently face down in the snow further away from the rock than the other implements. And the second picture involved a general picture of the blood splatters near the base of the rock itself. All of which were frozen over. In fact, the only thing not to have blood on it was Saeki’s coat.

*(I should probably take a closer look at it.)*

And so, I did. I headed over to where the coat was, watched my steps to avoid messing with the crime scene aside from the snow prints that I inevitably left behind, and stopped just over Saeki’s coat. When I looked at it, the image of her body came to the front of my mind and I frowned, but I raised my camera and took a picture of her coat nonetheless.

Then, I raised my head away from my ElectroID again and looked around the area for any possible remaining clues. However, if there were any, I couldn’t find them. The light grey rings went around the entirety of the rock and Koike was starting to head back with drag in her step. But otherwise, I couldn’t find anything that wasn’t immediately available.

I turned back towards the coat, knelt down, and gently raised the left side, the side nearest to me, out of the snow. Sure enough, the coat wasn’t covering any evidence nor was it covered in blood on the front side. The coat was simply removed for the sake of being removed. So, I carefully put it right back in the position I found it in.

Finally, I shook my head, put my ElectroID away, and started to head towards Koike to see if she was having any more luck than I did. However, the look on her face as well as her posture definitely seemed to indicate the opposite.

Regardless, I headed over to Koike just in case I was wrong. But as I passed by Wakuni and put my right foot down in front of me by the side of the lake, I noticed something. Namely, that almost all the traction that I had before disappeared. Within seconds, my foot gave way and I fell forwards past into the snow.

The moment I did, I realized just how thin the layer of snow actually was. Below that was a thick layer of ice that webbed over dry barren rock. Not that I had a chance to think much of it. Because within a moment, I completed my fall face first into the ice bed on the side of the lake with a loud violent crash and the impact pulsed through me. It wasn’t particularly painful, but it was loud enough to get the attention of everyone around me.

“Oh. Are you okay Nishi?” Wakuni asked with a hint of concern in his tone. I looked up to my right at him and nodded. “I should have warned you. I found a sheet of ice near the lake. I guess you could say I was distracted by the search.”

“Did you find anything?” I asked as nonchalantly as I could as I tried to use my hands to push off the ice sheet. At first, they slipped, but they caught traction on the edges of the ice and I started to push off of it. As I did, a random thought of annoyance came to mind.

*(This ice patch is just slightly larger than I am. I could have gotten seriously hurt by this if I hit my head too hard.)*

Wakuni’s reply didn’t do much for my mood as I started to stand up again. “No, it's just that you’re right next to one of the holes in the ice that covers the lake. I caught another glimpse of Saeki and I suppose I got lost in thought. I’m still trying to figure out why someone would want to do all of this to her. The only thing I can think of is the motive but the one person to actually receive the motive nearly became a victim.”

“Maybe someone else figured out who the motive pointed to,” I speculated with some irritation in my tone as I brushed the remaining snow off my jacket. “Or perhaps they thought they did and wound up killing the wrong person. Or maybe they had something else against Saeki. It's too early to tell.”

While I did just spit out the possible reason that the culprit may have had to mutilate Saeki as a way of telling him I didn’t know, I thought about my first answer for a second and made a mental note that it may be a possible motive. It certainly explained why he went after Senji and Koike if they wanted to pay the former back for not sharing the motive.

But regardless of the reason, I felt another headache spike and the two remaining search team members, Koike and Machi, converged on my location. Machi bit her lip and sported her backpack from earlier, but Koike looked up at my forehead, and then looked me in the eyes with a look of concern on her face.

“Are you okay Nishi?” Koike said without any attempt to hide her concern.

“I think so,” I said as I rubbed my head with my right hand. “I wish I knew about the patch of ice here, but it turned out okay I think. Also, I didn’t find anything that I hadn’t already noticed at first glance but did you three find anything?”

Koike and Wakuni just shook their heads and the former gave a deep sigh. But Machi on the other hand, spoke up with a faint hint of pride in her tone as she pulled out her ElectroID, tapped it, and showed the screen to the rest of us.

“Hand over your ElectroIDs and I’ll share these with you,” Machi said as the images started to flicker to life. More specifically, as two bird’s eye views of the lake and the ice shelf along the rocky pass came into view. Furthermore, the cliff looked thinner in the right picture. “I don’t know why, but the cliff had an overhang that someone sent tumbling to the base of it where the lake happens to be.”

I pulled out my ElectroID like Machi instructed and handed it over in her direction while I looked away at the bottom of the cliff that overlooked the lake. When I did, I raised an eyebrow. It certainly didn’t look as if any snow had piled up at the bottom of the cliffs. Yet, as I looked up towards the top of the cliff, I got my answer. Namely, that the snow had naturally built on top of the new mounds to mold them into the side of the cliff. Regardless, I felt someone yank my ElectroID away and turned towards Machi who now held three ElectroID’s in her left hand and her own in her right.

“Why don’t you sift through the other pictures while I get your ElectroIDs set up?” Machi offered while extending her right hand out towards us.

I nodded and complied, mainly because I didn’t want the possible fallout of Wakuni being the one to do it and possibly doing something to annoy Machi. I took Machi’s ElectroID which was luckily left on for us, swiped the screen, and looked down at the pictures. As I did, the others joined me.

But as I swiped through the pictures, I felt a minor wave of nausea. The pictures were all taken from a downward angle which couldn’t be helped. But machi was right about her camera being able to capture vivid images of Saeki through the ice. There were twelve pictures of Saeki in total. Some focused on certain aspects of her injuries while others covered different angles of her. But each and every one felt to me as if I had discovered Saeki’s corpse again.

“If only she didn’t come here,” Koike trailed off with a groan. “If I hadn’t agreed to meet her, the culprit wouldn’t have ambushed me and did- well- this to her.”

I looked at Koike and opened my mouth to tell her that they likely would have targeted Saeki anyways. But before I could, I heard a beeping noise come from the direction where Machi was standing and we all turned to see the source.

“Finished,” Was all Machi had to say before she held the three devices up for us to see. “Now, Nishi, if you’re ready to hand me my ElectroID back, I’ll give you all your ElectroIDs back.”

I did as she said. And when she collected hers, she handed ours back to us. When she did, I looked down at the screen of mine again and I saw Wakuni do the same for his while Koike simply pocketed hers. All the normal icons were where they were supposed to be and when I tapped the icon that activated the camera on the ElectroID, I noticed that the same pictures that I scrolled through on Machi’s device were now on my own as well.

“You better not have messed with my ID,” Wakuni warned as he turned his ElectroID off and pocketed it as well.

“Wakuni, I know you don’t trust me but I’ve never gone to the extreme of sabotaging your life,” Machi defended with a hint of exasperation in her tone as she pocketed her own ElectroID. I followed suit just as she started to reply. “Besides, I’m not some sort of expert hacker. I’m only able to do this because my drone was built to be able to share images and ElectroIDs are the intended recipients. Honestly, if you’re that worried, you shouldn’t have handed your ElectroID over to me.”

“You’re right” Wakuni reluctantly relented after a brief pause. “So, now what?”

Despite the fact that the question wasn’t directed towards me, I took one more glance around the lake and wracked my brain for another place or thing to search around the lake. Yet when I did, nothing came up. Aside from what Saeki lost, everything fell into place. And while I could have kept searching for them, there weren’t any leads that pointed to them or to the culprit as far as I could tell.

“Well I don’t know about you, but I think it would be best if we split up,” I responded despite the fact that he was talking to Machi. “We’ve already searched the scene of the crime and short of finding Saeki’s missing fingers and eyeball, there isn’t anything left for me to examine here. We’ve still got a lodge to search, pictures to share with Yakawa, and a few other places to search.”

“I still want to make one more search,” Machi asserted almost immediately while she crossed her arms. “Possibly take a few pictures of the crime scene myself.”

“Alright then,” Koike chimed in reluctantly. “I want to head back and check on Senji but I don’t have nearly as much experience driving these mobiles so I drive you I’m afraid. I would want to leave with Wakuni if he were willing to but- the investigation does come first so I can stay back for a little while longer if Wakuni is willing to take you back Nishi.”

“Its okay with me,” Wakuni said before taking one last look at the lake and frowning. “I’m inclined to agree with Nishi. I’ve searched the crime scene with her and I didn’t find anything that we didn’t see when we first approached it. Unless you count the sheet of ice that I found by the lake.”

“Wait, you found that sheet of ice and you didn’t warn anyone about it?” Machi questioned before she narrowed her eyes at Wakuni and shook her head in what must have been a disappointment.

“Yeah,” Wakuni grumbled before looking back at the blue mobile. If I had to guess, he was probably disappointed with himself that he let me slip. “Yeah, I knew.”

“It's nothing. We’re only talking about this because I slipped on the ice but I’m fine now,” I insisted. “Lets just pretend that never happened. We have more important things to do than focus on how I might have been hurt.” I looked over at Wakuni. “Now let's get going shall we?”

He nodded, Koike waved us goodbye, and with that, we headed over to and mounted the mobile. It was like before, Wakuni sat in the front, I sat in the back and wrapped my arms around his chest to avoid falling off as Wakuni sat in the front and started to rev the engine.

As the engine roared to life, I made one request to him over the noise. “Wakuni, when we approached the lake, there was a fork in the road. Do you have enough time for us to swing by and see where the other path leads? It could be important.”

“I do,” Wakuni agreed with a quick nod over his right shoulder. “In fact, I saw it as well and I couldn’t agree more.”

And so, the two of us sped off up the slope and away from the lake were Saeki was found. As we reached the top of the peak, the image of Saeki flashed once more through my eyes and I shuddered. But nonetheless, I maintained my steadfast grip on Wakuni as we made our way through the snow and back the way we came.

And rightfully so. We passed the upper shelf that overlooked the lake and made our way back through the pass that went through the jagged wall of rocks to our left. All at speeds that gave me more apprehension than what I already had. But luckily enough, Wakuni drove us through successfully. And within minutes, we made our way out the other side.

As we did, we were met by the blank, smooth incline that was most of where we could explore on the mountain. In fact, the only marks in the snow were the treds left by our own mobiles along with the alternate path in the road that went away from our path parallel to the rocks. The snow fell heavily and they were partially covered, but we both found them nonetheless and Wakuni sped off on the detour that was now to our right.

After that, we followed the winding trails through the snow with the passing rocks to our right and the barren incline to our left. And slowly but surely, the magnitude of the rocky obstacle to our left dawned on me. Granted, the trailed swayed and curved on occasion, but aside from the occasional curve, the path followed a straight line that ran along the face of the rocks.

I had no knowledge of the time that had passed while we travelled, but after what felt like an exorbitant amount of time, the trails came to a stop along the rock face next to a flat, grey protrusion that emerged from the snow and had two burned and twisted pieces of machinery on top of it covered in thick black ash. The moment I saw it, I knew a fire had happened there. And yet, the air was still as cool and crisp as ever.

*(I guess the fire happened some time ago.)*

As soon as I finished my train of thought, I felt a slight forward lurch and we decelerated towards the destination. The process was fast, but other than the slight jerk, it went smoothly and uneventfully until we came to a complete stop by the base of the flat rocky protrusion. From there, I pushed myself off the back of the snowmobile and feet first into the snow. And after Wakuni followed, we were once more on stable ground.

I wasted no time approaching the site. After all, as my thoughts reminded me, I had already spent enough time coming here. Whether or not it was a waste of time remained to be seen. But as I approached the ashes, pulled out my ElectroID, and examined the environment, I felt the feeling in the back of my mind that something important happened here.

Regardless, I looked at the metallic wreckage. Upon further examination, I saw something that made my eyes widen with surprise. The distorted pieces of metal vaguely matched the appearance for Machi’s standard sleek, black, drones and not unlike the one I encountered when I first met her. A thought that made is shiver for a brief moment when It came to me.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Aside from enough twisted wreckage to make up perhaps two of Machi’s drones, I noticed something else. Namely, that the red tinted front sensors on what must have been Machi’s drones were shattered. Furthermore, although the metal was bent and the glass on the sensors were partially shattered I something that vaguely looked like bullet holes across the bottom front of the twisted wreckage. Underneath the drones were broken disks. In fact, not even one of them appeared to be functional. And finally, it was all charred and covered to some degree in a layer of ash from what must have been a fire made to burn the drones.

*(I need to tell the others about this. Maybe during the class trial.)*

I took two pictures of the wreckage and looked around the environment to see if there was anything else to search. As I looked around, I saw the same vast endless landscape of snow as well as the impenetrable series of rocks that were thick enough to obscure the landscape beyond them. However, I did not see anything else of note.

It was then that Wakuni took a picture of the wreckage and spoke up with a hint of a smile on his face “It looks like someone really doesn’t like Machi’s drones. They must have caught the culprit on footage of something because someone clearly shot them down.”

“So you saw the bullet holes as well?” I asked as I looked back at him.

“How could I not see them?” Wakuni replied in a nonchalant tone before dropping to a more serious one. “Anyways, I’m going to take the opportunity to start by saying it wasn’t me. But whoever did this had to be very accurate to shoot through the sensor of a flying drone. And they had to have high firepower as well. Those bullet holes look pretty large. Do you suppose the culprit one a rifle in the prize room or something?”

I closed my eyes, wracked my brain, and tried to remember everything I could about the prize room. After a few seconds, I remembered seeing such a rifle on my first visit. But as soon as I did, I immediately remembered failing to enter the prize room on my second, more recent visit. And so, I opened my eyes and sighed.

“Its possible,” I admitted. “But I have absolutely no way of checking.”

“I might have found a Monocoin earlier. Maybe I’ll take a look when we get back,” Wakuni muttered as he put his hand to his chin in thought. “Speaking of which, I think I’ve found everything that there is to find here so let me know when you’re ready to leave.”

“I’m actually ready right now,” I replied before taking a pause and then explaining myself. “I can’t find anything else that’s suspicious around here. Besides that, I think it's fairly obvious that this was just a drop off point to burn whatever evidence the drones had.”

With that, Wakuni nodded, the two of us turned around, we pocketed our ElectroIDs, and we once again mounted the snow mobile. He slid his right leg over the thing, I scooted up onto the back of the seat, and I grabbed onto him. It was awkward to say the least. But as the engines roared to life, I took solace in knowing that this was the last time I would probably have to hang on for my life in a while.

Within seconds, the engine came to life and we pulled away from the burn site. And as we did, the thought occurred to me that it might be beneficial to ask Machi if she knew anything about losing two of her drones. For a second, I loosened my grip and pondered the thought. But after the moment passed, I made a mental note to ask her, shook my head, and focused back on reality.

Naturally, the trip itself went without incident. It took some time, but we made our way back to the fork in the road, took the right path which led us up the hill away from the rocky pass and followed the surprisingly hard to see trail in the snow until the mobile garage came into view.

Like before, it had a grey brick exterior with a grey metal garage door to obstruct our entry, but luckily enough, Wakuni tapped something on the snowmobile and the door began to open as we approached. After that, it was a simple matter of decelerating and gliding gently into the garage. We passed through as the door stopped and clicked open and the sound of the metal chains pulling the garage door up ceased to permeate the area.

It was then, when the snow mobile came to a complete stop and its engine ceased to make a sound once more, that we both hopped off and I practically exhaled a silent sigh of relief. It wasn’t terrifying by any means, but it wasn’t a pleasant experience either. Then, once I collected myself, I turned to face Wakuni and spoke.

“You can go ahead of me if you want,” I offered as he made his way over to the garage door button but stopped to face me as I spoke. “I’m going to stay behind and see if someone left something useful here.”

“Hmm, alright,” Wakuni said with a slight frown as he hammered the garage door button without so much as looking at it. Once more, the garage doors roared to live as the hum of the motor and the creaking sound of the metal doors shutting came to life. Nonetheless, Wakuni raised his voice so that he could be heard and continued. “Do be careful though, there is a psycho on the loose as you probably know already.”

“I will. You do the same,” I replied with a frown of my own. “Good luck. If I don’t see you later during the investigation, I’ll see you at the class trial Wakuni.”

Wakuni simply nodded, headed to the door, opened it up, stepped out, and let the door gently close behind himself. The door closed slowly, but sure enough, it shut with an audible click. And for the first time this whole investigation, I was alone.

*(Let's get to it then.)* I thought to myself as the garage door slammed shut and the room darkened.

The first place I searched was near the button from where I stood. I looked up, then looked around the room, and then looked down at the floor. The moment I did, I noticed a long brown hair on the floor and I smiled at the possible evidence. However, as I reached into my pockets to pull out my ElectroID with my right hand, the realization came to me that it was probably just one of Machi’s hair strands which meant nothing for the investigation since she opened the door to help us with the investigation.

I grumbled, but nonetheless, I pulled out my ElectroID, took a picture of it just in case it was relevant, and headed over to my next destination. Namely, to the door that had the half-white and half-black card reader.

From there, I swiped the ElectroID through the card reader. But when I did, the reader beeped red and the door refused to budge. That was more than enough to make me sigh and shake my head. But as I did, at least one positive came to me about the situation.

*(The area is probably restricted to the mastermind. That’s not great news in the long run but at least it means there is one less place that the culprit could use to commit the murder. Unless the culprit was the mastermind.)*

With that came a string of other theories. The main one of course, was that the culprit could be the mastermind. It could be true, but a part of me doubted that they would end their game now in an everything or nothing take all based on a class trial. Especially not when we had a history of finding the culprit. And so, I shrugged off the notion and proceeded to the final area of the garage.

As I headed over to the workbench as well as the chair, I took note of how it more or less looked exactly the same as when I first entered the mobile shed. The only things on it were the metal toolbox and the book. Neither of which seemed suspicious to anyone when Machi the whole search group was here, and neither or which caught my attention.

Still, In a last ditch effort to find something of value in the mobile shed, I reached out with my free hand and opened the toolbox. The lid rolled back gently and silently and I found many things as it did though not much that pertained to the investigation. Truthfully, it was exactly what it looked like. On the bottom were slots full of tools that were undoubtedly there to help fix the mobiles should they ever break down. And on the sides of the box were various racks that contained small plastic sacks of parts such as bolts or screws.

The one thing I did find however, stopped me in my tracks. Two bags had similar tools but ones of different types. The first bag had two screw types of different lengths while the other one that hexagon and octoaon washers. Moreover, two bags appeared to be missing from their racks. It was easy to miss and it might have been an honest mistake, but I took a picture just in case.

And then, I pocketed my ElectroID, turned around, and made my way towards the door. All the while, I bit my lip and thought about what I found. If I were to be honest, I wished that I found more. But at the same time, the pieces were starting to come together and I knew that I had exhausted all of my options as far as investigating the scene of the murder.

*(I guess it's still better than what I had to work with last time. Still, it is somewhat concerning. I just hope it's enough to figure out who did it.)*

I headed across the room, reached out my right hand, pulled open the door that led outside from the side of the snowmobile shed. At the very least, that didn’t give me any trouble. But regardless, I stepped out once more into the snow and away from the building that connected the two crime scenes.

After that, I walked back to the lounge as quickly as I could manage. After all, It wasn’t as urgent as when we were looking for Saeki, but I still didn’t want to waste any more time during the investigation. The trails that Machi and the Saeki had left were no longer visible. However, Wakuni’s footprints were fresh in the snow and provided a vivid trail for me to follow back to the lodge.

For a moment during the return trip, I considered how Machi and Koike would get back to the lodge if Wakuni and my footprints were covered in snow. But then I remembered that Monokuma kept offering to lead to way back for whatever reason and shrugged it off with one final semi-serious thought on the subject.

*(I hope for the sake of their sanity that they don’t have to do that.)*

Regardless, the trip went uneventfully. And in what felt like a much shorter time than when I first disembarked, I made my way to the front of the lodge, opened the door, and took my hood off my head as I was greeted by the warm air.

The door started to close behind me as I stepped inside, but I only barely waited for it to close completely before I proceeded to my destination calmly, but briskly. I headed out of the front area, past the central area although around the blood stain that Senji left on the floor, down the stairs to the dorm area, left at the fork, around two right turns, and to the door that led directly into the coat room area.

From there, followed the same process that I did all the other times. I opened the door, pulled out my ElectroID, headed over to the locker as the door shut behind me, swiped my ElectroID through the card reader, got my normal clothes, headed over to the women’s changing room, and swiped my card through the reader, and entered the actual changing room.

As I proceeded over to the nearest station and closed the door behind me. I began to think about where I was going to go next. The obvious answer of going to Yakawa first came to mind. But as I changed my clothes, I considered the possibility of stopping at the area where Senji was stabbed and examining it one more time for clues. I sighed as the image of Senji bleeding to near death on the floor came to mind. But in the end, I pushed the thought to the back of my mind and decided to search the area after all.

And so, I opened the door, headed out of the station, headed over to the door that led to the coat room, pushed the door open, headed over to my own locker which I just realized had been left open, headed over to it, and put my coat away. After that, I pocketed my ElectroID, closed the door, and shook my head at being foolish enough to forget to shut the locker door earlier.

Finally, I simply retraced my steps by heading out of the coat room, to the left through the dorm area, up the stairs, and to the spot where it all started. Or at least, the spot where I found Senji and the investigation started.

As soon as I did, I looked around the room. For the most part, it was the same as before. Just a plain room with five different pathways. In fact, when I looked down at the blood that stained the ground, I couldn’t even find the knife that was used against Senji. Though to be honest, it was more than obvious that Yakawa left it in Senji to prevent further blood loss. Regardless, when I looked down at the rather large bloody stain of fresh blood on the ground, I did notice one thing that raised an eyebrow.

*(Do I see more blood drops?)*

For a moment, I thought I saw faint specks of blood trail off in the direction of the front room. I blinked twice, pulled out my ElectroID, and took a single picture of the blood sample with the specks of blood as well as the path to the front room in the background of the picture. There was always the chance that it was Yakawa’s doing when he presumably moved Senji to the first aid station. But I was headed that direction anyways.

So, I carefully and slowly followed the faint trail of blood in the direction of the front room, passed by the end of the trail, and made my way into the front room. And the moment I did, another thought came to me.

*(I should have known.)*

But the truth was that I didn’t know that it wasn’t my fault, and that I didn’t have time to regret not preserving the crime scene. And so, I bit my lip and looked around the front room. It more or less looked the same as it did before everything happened save for the occasional chunk of snow on the ground thanks to the search party. The chairs were all in place, the tables, were in place, and most of the lamps were in place. However, as I looked around, there was one thing that definitely seemed to be off.

I headed over the leftmost table and peered down at it. Unlike the other tables, the lamp on this one was ever so slightly off-center to the right on the table. And as I examined it closer, I noticed a small ring on the table that could only have been from the base of the lamp to confirm my hypothesis. In spite of everything, I smiled as I took a picture of it.

From there, I lifted the lamp up with my right hand to examine the bottom of it. Unsurprisingly, the bottom of the lamp was devoid of both blood and any sign of evidence being wiped from it. But as I held it up, I noticed a very small crack in the window behind the lamp. The crack was a faint break in the window that was on the inside of the lodge and was to the left of the table entirely but it luckily enough did not fully penetrate the window to the outside. And so, I put the lamp down onto the table and took a picture of the crack in the window.

And that was it. With nothing else to look for, I put my ElectroID away and turned towards the first aid station. After all, I still had plenty of questions for Senji and at least a dozen pictures to show Yakawa. With luck, they may be able to discern more about the crime scene. Especially since the latter has always examined the bodies in the past.

I reached out the open the door handle to the first aid room so that I could check to see if they really were where Wakuni predicted they would be. But before I opened the door, I heard Monokuma’s muffled voice from behind the door.

“But of course he’s going to have to participate!” Monokuma argued in what sounded like his usual gleeful tone. “He’s alive, he’s probably able to walk, and you said yourself that he’s stable. If you wanted him to sit this one out, you should have done a shoddier job!”

I just sighed, shook my head, and opened the door. When I did, I was greeted by the sight of Senji laying down on the gurney with a sling by his right side, Yakawa standing by the cabinet, and Monokuma himself standing on the cabinet twirling the still knife that was presumably used to stab Senji.

Everyone must have noticed me as well. Because the moment I entered, everyone looked up at me, Monokuma fumbled and dropped the knife with a clatter nearby Yakawa’s foot, and Senji spoke up.

“Ah Nishi, I’m glad you made it,” Senji said with a slightly strained voice and a faint smile. A smile that drop when he continued. “I heard the body discovery announcement over the intercom and we both have seen the Monokuma file. I take it whoever did this to me got to Saeki?”

I nodded.

“Hello, I’m still here you know?” Monokuma shouted from across the room making Yakawa cover his ears and twitch his left eye. “You can’t just ignore me just because someone new came into the room.”

“Yes, I know. You make that painfully obvious,” Yakawa shouted back as he clenched his teeth and uncovered his ears. “Do you have something else that you want to tell us? Because you’re only wasting everyone’s time like this.”

Monokuma narrowed his normal eye and response but kept his chilling smile. “My students are never a waste of my time. Except when they are but still. Regardless, I had better see Senji attending the class trial or I’ll have his head. Maybe even literally.”

Evidently, Monokuma still must have agreed to some extent that it was a waste of time for him to be there in spite of what he said. Because over the course of three seconds, he shook his head and back flopped into the sink. And I didn’t even bother going over there to check if he was actually gone. A good part of me told me that he was and I believed it. So, I simply looked over at Senji as the stuffed animatronic bear left.

“Anyways, I came here for two reasons. The first was to tell you all that Koike isn’t able to see you yet because she’s stuck with Machi doing something, but she’s perfectly healthy. Sanda said he would tell you guys, but I’m saying it now just in case he didn’t.” I surmised as I felt another pulsating headache come on and clenched my teeth for a second accordingly. “Secondly, I think we all have a lot of information to share with each other. Starting with your testimony if you’re feeling up to it Senji.”

“Yeah, I feel up to it if it will help catch whoever tried to hurt- tried to hurt Koike,” Senji began to clench his fist before he recoiled in what could only be pain and loosened them. Regardless, he continued. “Perhaps I should start with what happened after my little fit earlier. When I left, I did indeed go to my room like I said I would. Koike was nice enough to accompany for a while but I didn’t get much sleep last night and there came a point where I needed to rest so she dismissed herself. That is a shame actually. She might have been spared from this if I didn’t try to rest-”

As Senji trailed off, I nodded and put my right hand to my chin in thought. It certainly collaborated with what Koike told us.

“It didn’t help matters either. In the end, I was unable to get any rest anyways,” Senji admitted with a slight grumble in his tone. “I left my room and proceeded to the front room to watch the snow fall because I thought it might help me relax. It didn’t, but I suppose it was still for the best that I went there because I ran into a figure dragging Koike’s unconscious body over his shoulder. I do say he because the figure was wearing a rather bulky dark blue coat with a bunch of other clothes on top of it. Regardless, I engaged, he dropped Koike and pulled out a knife, he stabbed me, and he left with Koike as I tried to crawl away and get help. After that, you saved me Nishi.”

“You should thank Yakawa. He’s the one who treated you,” I said in response as I gave a warm smile in response to his complement and looked over at Yakawa who was carefully picking up the knife off the floor with gloves on his hands. But as I did, I couldn’t help but feel as though something was off. After all, that didn’t explain the lamp or the window. “Is that all that happened? Did you notice anything distinct about them that we can use to identify the culprit?”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you. It all happened so fast. I’m afraid that all I have to help identify the person is that the person was male and his clothes were bulky. As for the chain of events, I am sure that other stuff happened while I fought the person. But I honestly cannot remember,” Senji lamented with a sigh. “Hey Nishi, there is another matter that I have been meaning to discuss. If we get through this trial alive, I promise that I won’t harbor any more secrets. I will tell you everything you want to know in regards to the motive. Now, is there any other way that we can assist you?”

“Well you can do your best to recover for the trial Senji. We can take care of it from here,” I insisted as I tried and failed to hide my sense of relief that Senji was coming clean about the motive. “I’m just going to ask Yakawa a few questions, I’ll show him a few things, and then I’ll be back to searching the lodge.”

As Senji nodded, I turned to face Yakawa. Sure enough, by the time I did, he had already finished putting the knife back on top of a paper cloth that lay on top of the counter. So, when I looked at him, I found that he was already looking back at me.

“I’m not sure how much use I am going to be at answering your questions,” Yakawa admitted as he crossed his arms. “I haven’t left Senji’s sight since the investigation started and I feel like I’m half asleep. It's been a pretty rough day for me in general to be honest.”

*(And yet you were still able to save Senji-)*

“That’s perfectly fine.” I replied. “I was actually interested in knowing where you were this morning and if you saw anything suspicious.”

“After breakfast, I went to the storage room. I was checking that one drug cabinet actually to make sure that there weren’t any nasty poisons that I overlooked. I was going to do it yesterday, but as you know, we’ve all been pretty busy lately,” Yakawa began with a hint of disdain in his voice. “Anyways, I was getting to that when I heard a loud bang come from across the room. I went to investigate, found a metal ball weight as well as a dent that it left in the wall, and looked at the newly open area. But when I did, I couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary.”

As soon as Yakawa paused, I remembered the secret passage that Senji showed me. I bit my lip. I felt the urge to glance over at Senji to see if he had the same thought that came to my mind, but I fought it off.

“After that, I figured that it was a trap despite not finding any such mechanisms and ran towards the exit to get help. But if I had to guess, that’s when I got this,” Yakawa said as he turned his head left and pointed to the injection mark on his neck with his right pointer finger. “I thought I was a dead man when I passed out. Thankfully I wasn’t. But when I woke up and started getting my bearing, I heard your scream and rushed over to help you. And that’s when I met you and the others where Senji was injured.”

“That does make sense,” I said as I crossed my arms, recalled the image of Senji laying on the floor, and visibly shuddered at the thought of what might have happened if Yakawa hadn’t come to his aid. “You know, you’re the fourth person that the culprit attacked.”

“Speaking of which, what happened to Saeki?” Senji interjected calmly enough. “The Monokuma file says she might have drowned but her injuries do not match the assessment. Regrettably, it almost seems as if she were mutilated like some victim you would find in a horror film.”

“Oh, she was mutilated alright, but it's very real I’m afraid. Too real if you ask me. I even have reasons to believe she was tortured.” I said reaching into my pockets and grabbing the ElectroID a little firmer than necessary. Similarly, Senji seemed to scowl and Yakawa clenched his fists upon hearing what happened. Regardless, I continued albeit in a slightly more exasperated tone. “That’s actually what I wanted to show you Yakawa. I have some pictures here and I was hoping that you could give me a more accurate assessment of what happened to Saeki.”

At that, I pulled out my ElectroID, tapped it, tapped the camera icon, and handed the device over to Yakawa. The moment I did, his mouth opened as if he were going to say something, but he closed it quickly enough and accepted it without many other reactions however. If I had to guess, I would say that it was for the same reason he never panicked upon seeing the other bodies. Namely, because he was used to witnessing trauma.

“I don’t know how, but Machi managed to get several pictures of her with one of her drones,” I explained. “I’m not entirely sure why or how the images are so clear, but I’m not going to question it.”

Yakawa ignored my comment and stared down at the ElectroID without so much as looking up in response. It didn’t matter, but as a result, silence permeated the room as Senji and I watched Yakawa and waited for an answer from him. The process went slowly, but sure enough, Yakawa made his way through the pictures Machi gave me.

“Something isn’t right,” Yakawa muttered to us and broke the silence as he flipped through the last one. “I am definitely inclined to believe that she died by drowning, but something isn’t right about her injuries. I may need to take another look at the Monokuma file but most of the blood that’s still on Saeki’s body should have washed off. Not only that, but her clothes ought to have larger bloodstains. I guess my conclusion is that she drowned but the time could be anywhere between 9:00am and 12:00pm and I have no idea when her other injuries were inflicted.”

At that, Yakawa handed the ElectroID back to me, I took it, I closed it, and I pocketed it with only a brief glance to confirm that Yakawa made it to the last picture. Sure enough, he did and I winced when I saw the image of Saeki once more.

“So, now what are you going to do Nishi?” Yakawa asked plainly enough.

“I’m probably going to search the east area of the lodge,” I replied almost immediately. “There are quite a few places that I think might have evidence. The storage room coincidentally happens to be one of them.”

“Well you should stop by the kitchen,” Yakawa said before glancing at the knife on the counter over his right shoulder. “In case you haven’t gotten a good enough look at the knife Senji’s assailant used to stab him, it came from the kitchen.”

“Well thanks, I'll be sure to do that.” I said with a quick nod to acknowledge him. “Is there anything else that either of you would like me to do before I leave?”

“It's no problem at all Nishi. We’re down a few people through no fault of their own so we’re all trying to help each other as best as we can,” Yakawa said before a weary smile brief showed on his face. “It's actually nice how everyone came together to save Senji and Koike. Anyways, you’re free to go.”

“Goodbye Nishi, I will see you at the upcoming class trial,” Senji began as he waved goodbye with his left hand.

At that, I headed out. I turned around, opened the door that led to the front room, and stepped outside. However, as soon as I did, I practically bumped into someone and nearly jumped at seeing them before I registered that they were there. Coincidentally, Koike Juichi stepped back and gave a quick gasp before she recovered as well.

“Welcome back Koike,” I said as I showed a brief weary smile. “Did you and Machi find anything new at the crime scene.”

“Machi took a few thermal pictures but we didn’t find anything that you don’t actually know about,” Koike said in an almost delicate tone as she shook her head. “I actually came to talk to Senji. I bet he’ll be happy to see me but I know I'll be happy to see him.”

“Oh, alright then,” I said as my smile dropped to a more neutral tone and I stepped to the left out of her way. “I’ll just leave you to it then.” I started to walk away but turned around one last time as an afterthought came to my mind. “And don’t worry about the trial Koike. I mean, I don’t want you to stop searching for clues but I’m sure we’ll figure out who did this. We just have to keep doing what we’ve been doing.”

“I sure hope so Nishi, what the person did was- well, it was terrible. And I don’t even want to think about it to be honest. Especially since things could have gone worse. Senji and I- we could have died too,” Koike replied before she gave a brief shiver along with a frown. “I’m not sure why I’m talking about what could have happened. I don’t feel particularly terrified right now. I- I mean the upcoming class trial scares me somewhat but I think you can handle that.”

“It's perfectly fine Koike, I felt fairly similar to how you did when Sasori nearly shot me,” I said as the memory of an arrow hitting a spot right in front of me burned in my mind. “We should probably talk about it after the class trial.”

“Yeah, we should,” Koike began to trail off before she took a deep breath and refocused. “Anyways, I think I’m getting sidetracked. We both probably have places that we want to investigate so I don’t think I should keep you here any longer. Goodbye for now Nishi.”

At that, Koike waved goodbye and we went our separate ways. Koike turned towards the first aid station and opened the door. Meanwhile, I turned around, walked down the hallway to the cafeteria, pulled the door open, walked through the cafeteria, and pushed the kitchen door open. All without any incident though as I proceeded to my destination, I took a few moments to remind myself of what Koike must be going through which was basically what I went through.

Furthermore, when I made it to my destination, I discovered several things of note almost immediately. First off, a quick glance at the knife rack told me that a single knife was absent from the rack. Moreover, the size appeared to match the knife that was used to stab Senji. Secondly, they all appeared to be wet. Finally, Sama was standing around the kitchen facing Tanabe as well as Sanda and talking to them. Or at least, Sanda was talking back to her.

“So, as you can see, there is no way I could have used the wire trick to grab the knife.” Sanda asserted with confidence in his tone. “It takes way too long to set up. And as we’ve already established, all the knives were washed so it would have ruined the trick if it were set up beforehand.”

“I’m not completely sure that I am inclined to believe you,” Tanabe quietly said as he tapped his right side with his right hand. “Still, you have a point. You couldn’t have used your substitution trick to grab the knife.”

“You’re only accusing me because you’re actually the most suspicious one here,” Sanda accused as he pointed his right pointer finger at Tanabe.

“Can someone explain to me what’s going on?” I interrupted as I folded my arms and looked back and forth between Tanabe and Sanda. In response, they all turned around although Sama froze for a second with what could only have been surprise before she did.

Luckily, it didn’t take long for someone to speak up. Namely, Tanabe in his usual manner. “We’ve all been scouring the kitchen for clues. I figured the knife that was used to stab Senji came from here, Sama got the same idea, and Sanda is here because she brought him here-”

“To prove that it couldn’t have been me,” Sanda interrupted before he paused, looked back at Tanabe, and insisted something else. “Which by the way, it couldn’t have as we’ve just established. So you can stop bugging me about it.”

“Sanda is right on all accounts. Even if he’s a little too pleased about it,” Sama said with a heavy sigh as she put her right hand to the bridge of her nose for a second. “First off, the knife does match one from the kitchen. For a short while, I suspected that he used the same trick that he used last dinner. I brought him here and he showed me how the trick works. It's a headache but he couldn’t have used it to acquire the knife.”

I simply nodded as I recalled what happened the dinner before today. It took me a second, but sure enough, I remembered Sanda seemingly showing up out of nowhere with his food when he should have had to go to the kitchen first. After that, it didn’t take long at all to connect the dots that the same trick could have possibly been used with a knife. Though that didn’t explain why he would do such a thing in the first place if he could just walk in and grab the knife.

“Why exactly does it matter if he could use that special trick or not?” I asked simply enough as I uncrossed my hands. “I’m not saying he did it, but anyone could have walked in the kitchen and take the knife.”

“Actually no. I was in and out of the kitchen for a good twenty minutes. And the time I was out, I was in the cafeteria. I eventually left both places to go to my room, but that was only two minutes before we found Senji stabbed,” Sama summarised before pointing to the rack with her right pointer finger. “They couldn’t have grabbed the knife before I showed up either because they were all washed and on the rack when I first showed up.”

“You know,” Sanda began as his smile dropped to a frown. “You actually being in the kitchen makes you kinda suspicious.”

“You know how much you’re helping your case by accusing me right?” Sama retorted with a mild glare as well as a hint of sarcasm. “In case you don’t know, you’re not helping it at all. Obviously, the same problem that applies to you applies to everyone.”

“It couldn’t have been Sama anyways. Koike and Senji both recall their attacker being male. So assuming the incidents are connected to the murder which would be pretty safe to assume, the blackened is one of the guys here,” I reasoned for the purpose of coming to Sama’s rescue and stopping an argument. For a moment, I even felt my own head throb. Regardless, I continued. “That actually reminds me. Sanda, Tanabe, I’m not going to throw out any accusations but I would like to know where you went after breakfast. And while you’re at it, if you saw anything suspicious.”

At that, both people visibly reacted to the accusation. Tanabe closed his eyes, shook his head, and sighed before opening his eyes again while Sanda drew a few beads of sweat across his forehead. As they did, I felt a small wave of dread wash over me.

*(Why do I get the feeling that I’m not going to like their answers?)*

I more or less got confirmation when Sanda spoke up. “So Nishi, I know the performance at the dinner party was cancelled, but it piqued my interest in performing for you guys ever since. After breakfast, I went straight to the theater near the gym and what used to be the library to practice a few of my tricks,” He said as he glanced over at Sama for whatever reason. “I was there the entire time so I didn’t see anything suspicious. I didn’t find anything missing there either if that helps.”

I put my right hand to my chin in thought. If I were being honest, his alibi lacked evidence to support it. Not that it was his fault. Everyone seemed to be dispersed which meant of course that Tanabe wasn’t going to have a verifiable alibi either. However, that wasn’t the worst of the problems with his story. Seconds, after he finished, a more concerning thought came to mind.

*(Wouldn’t the assailant have gotten their clothes from that theater? There is one at the summit, but they would have no reason to go there if they didn’t know that Sanda was at the theater.)*

“I went to the greenhouse after breakfast. I wanted some time to think about things and I thought it might be nice to spend time somewhere where I wasn’t surrounded by bleak white snow for once,” Tanabe quietly claimed. Sure enough, his account lacked an alibi as well. I looked down at his shoes and there was dirt on them, but he could have just swung by the greenhouse to fabricate an alibi. “Aside from what happened there, which I’m sure we'll never forget, it actually is a pretty relaxing place to go. Anyways, I was there until the time I heard you scream. When I did, I left to find you because you can be too cautious in a deadly game like this. Regardless, I didn’t find anything suspicious either.”

“You know the last thing we need is you reminding us of the other murders while we’re in the middle of investigating this one,” Sama remarked with a mild glare at Tanabe before turning towards me once more. “So, if I may ask, what brought you here to the kitchen?”

“Yakawa told me to but I was headed here anyways. Since the knife that was used to stab Senji came from here, I thought it might be a good idea to look around for clues.” I responded as I lowered my hands back to my sides and produced a faint smile. “Bit it seems like you’re all already on top of things here.”

*(I’m actually mildly impressed.)*

I left that part out, but Sama must have felt the need to explain herself because she spoke up next. “Well, we’re down two people thanks to the stunt that the assailant pulled so someone has to step up. Besides that, it's not like we were the most help last time around. I promised myself I would be more helpful from now on and I guess this is it.”

“Before you ask, we didn’t find anything other than the missing knife on the rack. And we looked practically everywhere,” Sanda explained as he bit his lip. “Speaking of which, it may be for the best if you searched somewhere else. I mean, you obviously know what you’re doing, but it might not be the best idea for us to have over half our investigation team searching one room.”

“I concur,” Tanabe said with a quick nod of agreement and a slight frown. “I don’t know when Monokuma is going to call us to the class trial, but it can’t be far off. We’ve been investigating for some time.”

I opened my mouth in response, but I closed it and considered what they were saying. Truthfully, it made perfect sense. I had been out at the lake for a while and I did take a detour so it wasn’t like I had the full investigation to search the lodge. Combined with the fact that at least three other areas in need of investigating immediately came to mind, I understood his point. I didn’t like it, but I understood it.

“Well then, I guess I had better get going then,” I conceded after a brief moment of silence. “I’ll probably see you all at the class trial next so good luck on the investigation.”

And so, I waved goodbye to the three of them, they waved goodbye back, and I turned around towards the exit into the back hallway near the greenhouse. From there, I headed over to the doors, pushed them open with both of my hands, and stepped into the hallway beyond the kitchen as the doors gently and audibly creaked shut behind me.

It didn’t take too long however for the doors to audibly shut completely and leave me to myself to ponder where I should search next. Naturally, there were the three areas that immediately came to mind. Namely, the incinerator room, the storage room, and the theater. So, I took another deep breath and considered them. According to everyone’s testimony, the killer had to have been at all three places but the question was which one to search first. I thought about it for a second, but in the end, I decided upon searching the closest area first which was the incinerator room.

With that, I took off for the incinerator room. I turned left, calmly but quickly strode straight past the entry to the hall that led to the front room, passed up both the greenhouse as well as the supply closet, passed the cross se-tion at the end of the hallway, turned right, and went down the stairs. But when I reached the bottom, I was stopped in my tracks at the person I saw.

Just ahead of me was Machi Satu fiddling with the control panel to the extent that she didn’t so much as look up or notice that I was there. Likewise, if she heard me arrive, she didn’t show any signs of it. Moreover, she wore clear goggles over her eyes, black gloves, and bore a power drill in her right hand. So, I waited until she stepped back for a moment to speak.

“Hey Machi,” I remarked. At that, see turned towards me and lowered the power drill down to her side and I headed over to her. “I see you finished up at the crime scene.”

“Well, obviously,” Machi replied in a deadpan tone. “Not to be rude, but do you need me for anything? Because what I'm doing is pretty important.”

“Well first off, I was going to search the incinerator room and I would like to know if its safe to go in there,” I pointed out as I motioned to the panel with my right hand. “Did you know that someone shot down two of your drones?”

“Yes on both accounts,” Machi said as she closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead with her left hand for a moment. If I had to guess, she was less than pleased at what happened. “The culprit damaged most of the controls on this panel but he failed to remove the safety mechanism that was embedded in the system. I’m happy to say that Koike was never in any danger and neither are you. Even if I could turn the incinerator on with you inside it, it would be stupid of me to do so. With all that said however, I really hope Monokuma fixes this later. Just going through it is a headache.”

As Machi finished her first thought, I gave a quick nod and considered telling Koike that she wasn’t in any danger, or at least, not unless the assailant realized their mistake, when the class trial came around. It certainly would cheer her up some and everyone knew she’s been through enough already.

*(If I find her again, I’ll tell her personally. Otherwise, I can wait until the topic of where Koike was taken comes up.)*

“And as for my drones, well it's a heck of a lot less complicated, but more annoying,” Machi stated with more than a hint of irritation in her tone. “I have footage of the person who did and that person was Monobear. That overstuffed D-list animatronic showed up and pointed at my drones. When it did, turrets emerged from the snow and that’s pretty much the last thing they saw. Before they went down, which isn’t long after based on the audio clips I have. How’d you find out about them?”

“I found them at what I could only guess was a burn site,” I answered simply enough. “Both drones were carrying disks but I don’t think they’re salvageable as all of them have been burned and most of them have been broken into separate pieces. And even if they were, the trail that led there is likely to have snowed over by-”

I trailed off for a second as I recalled the snow tracks. It made perfect sense by itself, but as I explained it to Machi, I realization hit me. Monokuma was too small to drive a snowmobile and didn’t need one because he had some ridiculous network that took him wherever he wanted in what seemed like an instant. So whoever moved the drones to the site was a human working with Monokuma. And as I connected the final dots, my eyes went wide with realization.

“Machi, I think the mastermind was involved. If Monokuma had both drones shot down like you say, then someone working with him must have moved them because only one of us could have left the tracks that the perpetrator did,” I almost blurted out after the short silence that I left hanging in the air. “Do you know when tyhe were shot down?”

“One this morning right before breakfast at 7:20am. The other one was shot down at 8:40am,” Machi replied as a faint smile crossed her lips. “It seems like we have another limited timeframe where our mastermind had to act. All we have to do now is figure out where everyone else during the time in question.”

“Hmm, I’m working on that,” I said as I crossed my arms. “You aren’t going to like this, but there aren’t too many people who have confirmable alibis. Perhaps it would be best to try and figure this out in the upcoming class trial. Most of us are going to explain where we were anyways so it’s the ideal time to see who could or couldn’t have burned those drones.”

Machi’s smile dropped, but she conceded nonetheless, “Yeah because we’ll be trying to catch the monster who murdered Saeki and tried to kill both Koike and Senji,” Machi said between drawing a brief pause. “Speaking of which, I think I had better get back to making sure the culprit didn’t leave any nasty surprises for us when he messed with the controls. And Nishi, if we can’t find the mastermind, I still want to find out who did this.”

“I promise we will Machi. We always did in the past and I don’t see any reason why we can’t do it again,” I said in a genuine reassuring tone. “Goodbye Machi.”

And with that, the two of us went back to our respective tasks. Machi buried herself in the task that she assigned herself by heading back over to the control panel and drilling into it. Meanwhile, I passed her by, rounded the corner, and proceeded to the door on my right just out of sight of Machi. From there, I approached the door to the incinerator, pulled out my ElectroID, swiped it through the card reader, and pulled the door open like all the times I had before.

*(Alright Machi, I hope you’re being careful with those controls.)*

Without another thought, I stepped into the incinerator room. The moment I did, a permeating stench reached my nostrils. Truthfully, it wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the other times that I had entered the incinerator room. But the atmosphere was warm and stuffy, the floor was littered with trace amounts of trash save for the area in the middle that had been cleared for Koike, and frankly, it occured to me fairly quickly that the fact that my adrenaline was coursing through me was probably the only reason why I didn’t notice earlier.

Nonetheless, I stepped towards the center of the incinerator room, pulled out my ElectroID, and looked for evidence. Almost immediately, I took notice of the black cord as well as the two pieces of white cloth that lay on the ground along with a sticker that I knew drugged Koike unconscious. For a moment, I paused and stared down at Koike’s former bindings as well as the other implements. After all, it wasn’t lost to me that Koike went through the same thing that I did only worse. But shortly after, I took the picture.

After that, I proceeded to look around in surrounding trash for clues. Namely, with a quick glance up and around at the walls before patrolling the surrounding trash on the ground. Throughout the ordeal, I proceeded slowly and thoroughly. However, when I looked around, I noticed that nothing I found was out of the ordinary. And at the end of my search when I finished combing the incinerator, I couldn’t recall finding anything other than normal trash. In fact, none of the other trash even appeared to method of operation that I had observed in the murder scheme.

So, I gave a quick sigh, pocketed my ElectroID, and step out of the incinerator room, and closed the door behind me. Sure enough, the incinerator door swung shut smoothly enough, closed with a heavy thud, and left me out in the hallway by myself once more.

*(Well, I guess it's time to try the storage room now.)*

I made my way down the hallway and once more, the cold air from the door outside swept through the hallway, chilled me, and briefly made me consider just how thankful I was that I had my coat. But other than that, I reached the door to the storage room, pulled it open, and stepped into the storage room without any real incidents. From there, I simply waited for the door to slam shut behind me.

From there, I pulled out my ElectroID and took a quick glance around the place. Truthfully, nothing appeared to be immediately out of place, but considering the fact that Yakawa admitted that something bad happened to him here, it was well worth it to conduct a more thorough examination of the area. The only question was where to start in the relatively large and cluttered room. It stood still and thought about it for a second, but after that, I realized that the answer was obvious.

*(Let's start with where Yakawa claimed the incident happened.)*

And that’s what I did. After my short pause, I headed over to the area where Yakawa claimed he saw the weighted ball strike the wall. Yakawa seemed to have been under the impression that the weighted metal ball came from the new area, and for a good reason since I distinctly remembered the crate that was full of them when I last search it. So, I proceeded to the area near where he logically would have seen the ball, namely, the wall opposite of the area that used to be behind door four.

Sure enough, when I reached the area in question. I found two things that Yakawa mentioned in his testimony without much trouble. I noticed a faint depression in the lower section of the wall with cracks that webbed outwards from the center of it to beyond the depression. It was about the size of one of the black two-pound ball weights from earlier and was about the same distance from the ground as my knees. But what I found of the floor made me recoil away from the scene. Instead of the two pound ball weight I expected, I found a small, thin dart with a long, sharp, silver tip that bore fresh blood on the end of it. If I had to guess, that blood belonged to Yakawa.

Naturally, I took two pictures. One picture of the crack in the wall and one picture of the dart that was on the ground. After all, neither of them were the weighted metal ball that Yakawa mentioned, but both seemed to collaborate with Yakawa’s story. However, as I took the pictures, a question came to mind and a small headache came with it.

*(Assuming Yakawa is telling the truth, which I will for now, whoever did this left the dart at the crime scene and took the ball weight with them. But why?)*

I did my best to shake the headache off and I mentally postponed the question. After all, the issue could always wait for the class trial. And in fact, it would be better to try and figure it out once we had everyone pool together their collective information. So, I turned around and set myself on a more immediate task. Namely, searching for the ball weight and any other clues that the culprit might have left in the area.

To my surprise, I didn’t have to go far to find out where the ball weight was probably dropped off. The moment I turned around, I faced the area that had been most recently unlocked. Just like Yakawa said, nothing in the area initially appeared to be out of place and I passed over it with my gaze. But as soon as I did, I caught a glance of a closed brown wooden crate and darted my eyes back in the direction of the room.

*(Something isn’t right.)*

With that, I slowly proceeded over to the sub-area. And as I did, the lingering doubt hung in the air as I wracked my brain to try and remember what used to be different about the room. At first, the ordeal only made my headache pulsate. But by the time I reached the threshold, the realization hit me like a truck. Not only did the room used supply everything we found at the crime scene, but the brown wooden crate used to lack a lid.

Ding dong, bing bong.

My heart skipped a beat when I heard that sound play over the speakers. And within moments, my fears were confirmed. “Hello students! Are you ready for a class trial? If not, too bad because we’re doing this anyways! That’s right everyone! It's time for the glorious fourth class trial! Now, like always, you are all expected to report to the class trial elevator. And yes, while you ought to know better, I’ll lead you there if ya get lost and give a shout so you have no excuse not to be there! And- well that’s all really. Cya!”

At that, I scrambled forward. Several places that I had not yet searched flashed through my mind. But as my heart raced, I shook my head and scrambled to do what little I could. For starters, I grabbed the lid to the wooden crate, flipped it open, and peered at the contents inside. There were weights and some were missing just as I predicted, but while it may have been due to the urgency of the situation, I failed to see anything unusual within the crates. Nonetheless, I took a picture of the weights inside.

My pulse raced and my eyes darted around the room for other things of which to take pictures. Thankfully, I quickly found another thing to search. This time, it was the giant blue bin that I glanced at. And I when I did, I didn’t feel so much as a hint of surprise at the revelation that it was no longer filled to the brim with various rope and other equivalents. While it wasn’t mostly full, but it was no longer completely full. And so, I took a picture of it.

Then, I searched the three layered rack. Sure enough, while it was nearly impossible to identify one missing pair of jumper cables and few missing batteries, I noticed that an electrical box was definitely missing from one of the small bins. So, I took a picture of the rack. And with that, I pocketed my ElectroID and let out a small sigh.

Finally, I took one brief glance at the picture of the labyrinth, or the entrance to one of the many places that I didn’t have time to search. As I did, my heart sank with regret as well as concern for the upcoming class trial and for a moment the nightmare that haunted me two nights ago flashed in my mind. But in the end, I did the only thing I could. That is, I shook my head as if it would remove the thought and turned around to make my way towards the exit.

And that’s exactly what I did, I scrambled towards the door that led to the hallway, opened it, and ran out into the hallway without so much as stopping to make sure the door closed completely behind me.

What followed after that was a relatively uneventful but fast paced trip to the elevator room. After all, while I doubted that it was dangerous urgent and I figured I was in the short period of time that people had to get to the elevator, I didn’t want to take the risk. So, with heavy breaths, I raced around the incinerator room, up the stairs at the end of the hall, rightward through the back hall, past the mirror as well as the new picture on the wall, and leftward through the hall on the right side until finally, I approached the double doors that led to the elevator room.

It was then, and only then that I allowed myself to slow down. I reached out, pulled the right door open, stepped inside, caught my breath, and looked around as the door audibly slammed shut behind me. And when I looked around, I saw Machi, Wakuni, Sama, Tanabe, Koiki, and Sanda all staring back at me. In fact, the only people that I couldn’t find were Senji and Yakawa. Furthermore, Machi appeared to be standing by Koike and Wakuni was standing by Sama.

For a moment, we all stared at each other. But then, Koike stepped forwards and delicately spoke up. “Nishi, are you alright?”

“I’m fine. It's just that I was- in the middle of a search when the class trial announcement played- and I didn’t know how much time that I had left to get here. I’ll be fine- just give me a few moments” I explained with breaths. “But unfortunately, there were several places- that I didn’t have time to search.”

Surprisingly enough, that produced a reaction from everything. Wakuni and Sanda both looked away, Sama bit her lip, Machi and Tanabe crossed their arms, and Koike went wide-eyed. And when I saw it, I winced.

“Are you saying that you didn’t have time to properly examine all the areas that you thought were suspicious?” Wakuni asked with a small hint of concern in his tone. I gave a single slow reluctant nod and he sighed. “Well, that complicates things to say the least.”

“It doesn’t help that Senji and Yakawa didn’t have time to investigate either,” Tanabe chimed in in his usual tone. “I suppose we’ll just have to be careful I suppose. There’s always the chance that we can’t find the culprit-” He started to trail off. “But there isn’t any reason to believe we can’t. We just have to be careful about this.”

“You know, you’re not the prime suspect or anything but you’re alibi is the most suspicious,” Sama remarked flatly with a glance in his direction.

“True, but you were the one in the kitchen where the culprit grabbed the knife,” Sanda remarked earning himself a small glare from Sama. At that, he defended himself. “Hey, I’m just saying that you shouldn’t go around pointing fingers.”

*(You mean after you did exactly that earlier?)*

“Can we cut this out?” Machi interrupted with a brief sigh. “It's bad enough that Saeki is dead, but we’re never going to find the person who murdered her if we keep throwing unsupported accusations around. Now, does anyone have anything that is actually productive to contribute.”

“Well, I followed one of Nishi’s hunches,” Wakuni of all people offered to Machi. “I was looking for an empty rack that had a high powered rifle in the prize room. I found a high powered rifle there, which means it couldn’t have been used. But I did find an empty area that housed a blowdart. One that carried nonlethal ammunition to be specific.”

“Wait, you went to the prize room?” Koike muttered with some degree of concern in her tone. “What did you end up getting there?”

“I wound up getting the rifle for myself actually. I didn’t want anyone else to have it and cause any more potential frame ups down the line,” Wakuni said as he brushed the notion aside with his right hand. “It's nicer than what I already have, but it's not any more dangerous.”

“Tsk, it's still too dangerous if you ask me,” Machi remarked in a rather cold tone and a cautious glance at Wakuni.

Wakuni opened his mouth in response as if to make some sort of retort, but before he could, the double doors to the elevator room swung open once more. This time, Senji came through wearing that dark blue sling from earlier on his right arm and leaning back unamused in a wheelchair. And of course, Yakawa came in behind him pushing the wheelchair with both hands. As a result, we all looked over in their direction though Sanda was the first to comment.

“So, is Senji able to stand?” Sanda said with more than a hint of concern in his tone.

“He is,” Yakawa confirmed. At that, Sanda and Koike both breathed sighs of relief as he continued. “He’s in a wheelchair for the same reason Nishi was last time. I just treated him and I didn’t want to risk him hurting himself accidentally on the way here.”

“If I may interrupt, I have something of my own to say,” Senji said before looking down, pausing as if looking for the words, swallowing, and looking up at them. “I know it is off topic, but- I just wanted to say thank you. Though you could not save Saeki, you saved my life and you saved Koike’s life. I just wanted to say that I’ll never forget that. And furthermore, if we make it through the class trial, I don’t want there to be any more secrets between us. So once we are finished, I shall explain everyone you wish about the motive. I promise.”

As soon as Senji stopped talking the doors opened behind us with the usual metallic clatter that echoed throughout the room. We all halted the conversation and turned around to face the source of the noise. Namely, the uninviting elevator that led into the dark ominous depths of the lodge from which at least one person wouldn’t be returning. And to make matters worse, when the doors swung open, I noticed the usual half-white half-black teddy bear standing in the middle of the elevator with his hands waving in the air dramatically.

“Welcome, welcome!” Monokuma cheered before dropping his hands and dropping his voice to a more ominous tone as his red eye lit up. “You know that some of you arrived late?”

At that, Wakuni’s eyes darted in Yakawa’s direction for a moment, but he looked back at Monokuma just as quickly and narrowed his eyes at him. “We’re all here now Monokuma. So what’s your point?”

“My point is that I would be more careful next time if I were them,” Monokuma said before glaring at me, Wakuni, Senji, and Yakawa. As he did, I felt a chill rush over me that wasn’t related to the temperature of the room. “Its true that there are no rules against tardiness, but it would be a real shame if they missed the elevator, missed the class trial, and were punished over something as silly as absence because they refused to listen to their great headmaster.”

*(I can think of so many better words to describe you than great Monokuma.)*

“I take it we should just get into the elevator then,” Sanda said in a somber tone before he visibly swallowed. “And maybe just move on with the warning.”

Monokuma just nodded and began to back away with a final warning for us. “I’ll be seeing you all at the class trial. That is unless you want to be punished. Either way, this elevator is going down whether you’re on it or not.”

Not long after that, Monokuma backed away to the metal bars on the other end of the elevator before finally splitting through part of the cage into the darkness and presumably down the elevator shaft. But for some reason, I doubted I would be seeing a destroyed unit when we reached the bottom.

Regardless, the nine of us wasted absolutely no time boarding the elevator. Some people who would have been more hesitant were paler than the rest like Koike and Tanabe. But by the time the elevator doors clamped shut and trapped everyone in or out of the cage, we were all inside. And one quick glance around assured me that Koike, Senji, Sama, Yakawa, Wakuni, Machi, Tanabe, and Sanda were all there.

Then, once more, the elevator jerked to life and began its creaky descent into the dark shaft. Sparks flew and the occasional sound of metallic scrapes filled the air. But other than that, an ominous silence loomed in the air. And for good reasons to. There were rooms that we weren’t able to search, we had two people down for the entire investigation, and what little I did find only made my head spin.

I took a deep breath and passed one final glance over at Machi before we fully descended into the darkness of the shaft. The circumstances were anything but ideal, but we had to find the monster who did this to Saeki. And not just for our own lives either. The culprit harmed three people above and beyond what would have been necessary to graduate. The killer tortured or at least mutilated someone. Whoever did all of it was a monster and we couldn’t allow them to get away with the atrocities that they committed. So, as we continued our rapid descent, I sighed and ruminated on thought.

*(For Saeki, Machi, Senji, Koike, and everyone else who this person hurt, I promise I will do everything I can to stop this monster.)*

## Trivia

* Technically, this chapter has the third or second major clue as to who is the mastermind depending on what you consider to be a major clue.