Closing Arguments

**Closing Arguments** are a recap of the murder once the blackened has been chosen correctly. Monokuma will post the closing argument, and then the execution in a separate channel from the trial grounds. These can be written by any of the living students, blackened or spotless. There were 6 closing arguments in season 1. There was also no closing argument for trial 7.

## Closing Arguments - Season 1

### *for the murder of Rico Terrez - by Victor Cunningham*

"It all started when our culprit decided to take a knife from the kitchen. This might’ve been grabbed for self defense, or had always been held with the intention of murder, we don’t really know... all we know is that they took it”

“Then the culprit grabbed a pair of gloves that they owned and began setting up the trap. It was a tripwire trap”

“When the tripwire was activated a knife would come swinging down from the ceiling. Said knife was connected to ceiling lamp. Our culprit then left with their trap set up.”

“Next is when our victim came in. Rico entered the room for no particular reason; he really only died because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time- but nevertheless he did die.”

“He triggered the tripwire and the knife hit his back. At that point he crawled onto a table hoping that he would be able to write the killers name, sadly he died before he could.”

“Monokuma, bored with no one discovering the body for a couple days, put plants in the room hoping to attract Lilly. It did not work, but by chance Lilly entered the classroom and saw the scene."

“Without the knives and the gloves we would have really had no idea who the culprit was”

“And the person behind this terrible crime was you- Yukon Evropa, the ultimate historian”

### *for the murder of Lushenko "Faustin" Thetermann - by Anvil Martel*

"So, to be sure I understand, I'll go over this case one more time, alright?"

"This incident truly began yesterday, at about 10 PM. The crime began when our culprit wrote two notes, one for Ashura and one fo Faustin. The notes convinced both men to enter the gym storage room, Ashura at midnight and Faustin at 1 AM. This trick allowed the culprit to enact their plan in secret. At 12 PM, Ashura entered the Gym Storage room. At this time, the culprit took a wooden baseball bat, likely from the same storage room, and hit Ashura over the head with it, knocking Ashura unconscious. With that, the first part of the plan was complete."

"Next, the culprit waited until Faustin arrived, which he did at 1 AM. The culprit took the baseball bat and knocked Faustin unconscious as well, creating the bloodstain on the pommel horse. She dragged Faustin to the location of Ashura, towards the back of the storage room, and hit Faustin again on the head, killing him. In addition, the Culprit hit Faustin and Ashura multiple times to create the illusion of a struggle. This part of the plan had one fatal flaw, though. Lilly placed a second bat at the scene of the crime to frame the now unconscious Ashura for murder. This might have worked, however the second bat was free of any blood."

"The culprit then could return to their room to hide evidence however she wished. Given the messy nature of their crime, it is likely the killer changed clothes or washed up in this period, preventing us from seeing blood on the killer later. Disaster stuck for the culprit when they then ran into Victor, and walked with him to the Garden, where they met up with Arthur and Chloe. This normally would be no problem, but the Killer was supposed to be there since dinner, and had to come up with a lie to evade suspicion."

"Despite this, the Killer was likely still in a prime position, until they remembered one more piece of evidence they had left behind: the notes in Ashura's and Faustins room. Since everyone had seen the culprit's handwriting at least once, the culprit knew they had to track down the notes. The culprit rushed down some stairs to get to the notes and destroy them, but in their rush, they fell and broke their leg. This alerted several other students, bringing them all together, and also prevented the killer from destroying the most important piece of evidence"

"And it is because of that evidence we know that our culprit is the Ultimate Gardener, Lilly van het Roosenvelt. Did I get all that right?"

### *for the murder of Anna van Stapelen - by Arthur Bond*

*Arthur opened his eyes, and began to recount how everything went down.*

"...This all started with Mae planning the murder of someone else to free Luna, at around 23:00. The victim to her didn't matter, so she knocked over a bookshelf to get someone's attention, anyone's attention."

"The poor soul who was lured in was Anna Van Stapelen, the ultimate roboticist."

"With two items from the planetarium as weapons, mainly the telescope, Mae attacked. However, Anna managed to fight back by grabbing a nearby lamp."

"This fight went on for quite a while, as seen with the bruises all over both of their bodies. Ultimately, Anna knocked Mae into the second bookshelf, crushing her."

"In order to hide the evidence of their fight, Anna put the part of her mask that broke off beneath the globe."

"Devastated by what she had done, she couldn't live with killing another person. She then wrote a suicide note and traveled to the music room, placing it down inside. Once inside, she was ready to carry out her final acts."

"Her chosen method of suicide was to crush herself. She tied the rope to the piano, connecting it to the light controls, guiding her bobot over to the music room, leaving the door open as well."

"When she was in position underneath the piano, face down, she commanded the bobot to drop the lights then leave the room, crushing and killing her in a matter of seconds."

"Sadly, the suicide note was stolen by Monokuma before the investigation occurred, making this trial a whole lot harder than it needed to be."

"...I guess that's it, huh, Anna?"

#### Concept Comic

For this closing argument, Arthur's player suggested he draw a comic styled in the way official Danganronpa closing arguments look. Like all aspiring artists with 90% of their projects, this one was never finished. There was, however, a base made to be drawn over. The closing argument comic panel referenced for the creation of the base is here. He had even chosen reference sprites for Anna (Kirumi) and Mae (Maki).

### *for the murder of Ashura Otoishi - by Johnny St. Sorrows*

“So, I’m guessing that this is how it went…”

“Alderney and Ashura set up some sort of fight in the Abandoned Classroom. The main ‘rule’ of this fight was that the first person to either go down or get out of the circle was deemed the loser, which was punished with death. The two’s light source was likely one of Ashura’s own thermite sticks.

When that thermite stick finally stopped burning, Alderney managed to get the upper hand when she switched her eyepatch to the other side of her head. This switch allowed her to see better due to the previously covered eye being pre adjusted to the dark.

My bet is that Ashura went out with a smile as a show of his willingness to die, which is also supported by him giving Alderney his own weapon. Poor bastard probably even anticipated his own death, a theory supported by him giving his pins away to just about every remaining student.

In addition, If my assumption isn’t wrong, it seems like Alderney never even switched her eyepatch back to its original position after the whole event.

Now, is there anything I missed? Or perhaps, **a loose end?**"

### *for the murder of Dimitrios Gerontas - by the blackened himself, Arthur Bond*

“It… was me. Dimitrios and I planned this out. I had recently gotten a motive from Monokuma, with him telling me that the incinerator’s incinerator and the forge’s forge won’t kill you if a human steps in, and will instead have the properties of water, with the person who does go inside being able to travel to and from the forge and the incinerator.

Of course, that isn’t possible in real life, and the knowledge that this was a simulation wouldn’t be believed outright by a certain few people I know here, so me and Dimitrios made a plan to let everyone know discreetly, without the chance of harm. If we all knew this was a simulation, we could catch the mastermind in their weak spot.

First, I took a wetsuit, towel, and ropes, along with the syringe of etorphine, and headed to the forge. Dimitrios himself just needed to get the weights and makeshift pulleys from the gym, and go to the incinerator. I helped him tie himself up, and designed the pulley system, allowing for as many people as possible to witness the supposed glitch in the system, while keeping him above water level so he stays alive.

Once I was done helping him and setting up the weights, I put the wetsuit back on and headed back into the forge, where Victor and Chloe heard the first thud of me hitting the floor. I’m lucky they didn’t investigate immediately, or I would have had some explaining to do.

I cleaned up the floor of water, then tossed in the towel and the wetsuit. Once I left, Dimitrios put a small amount of etorphine in himself that I made, for the worst case scenario. That syringe seemed to have rolled onto the ground instead of in the incinerator, so that evidence was left out.

Of course, we set the glitch reveal up this way so that if the worst case scenario happened, I could survive the trial, and claim the second motive, the hint about who the mastermind is. With that, I hoped to reveal them and get us out of here as quickly as possible.”

“But it seems you’ve stopped that… I didn’t want him to die, either. So I accept my fate. But even in death, I will end this killing game, and keep us all safe.”

### *A confession - a note by Luna Fortuna*

Hey guys...

It's me, Luna.

I... am sorry. Killing Lee was my idea. Y-You see, I was thinking that Monokuma couldn't punish us dead people, so maybe if I manage to kill three of the living people, I could leave and help you get out. And besides, I know nothing bad happens to the dead people. I'm dead myself!

Well I got Lilly in on the plan, who then got Anna in on it, and then we invited Arthur but he well... was really not ok with it. So that delayed everything. Ultimately we decided however that Anna should kill someone, since she already killed two people, one of them being herself. But after the fight she was kinda bedridden so

She built a few machines to kill Lee. And then me and Lilly set them up in the boys bathroom. The doorstopper was made so that when someone enters, the door snaps shut behind them. And another machine to fill the room with Carbon Monoxide. I think she said that she got some coal from the storage room to make it, but I don't know enough about chemistry for that. The machine could be activated from her hospital bed, so she didn't have to move to kill Lee.

To throw you off more, Lilly and Me pretended to be the murderer. I wrote a note luring Lee into the boys bathroom, but Lilly said it's probably better to write the note herself and put some spelling errors in so you'd think she did it.

I then later wrote the note pretending to be Lee to further obfuscate the truth. I... hope it didn't reach you.

Anyways...

I'm sorry. I hope you can forgive me. I hope you can forgive Anna. It's what we had to do.