Chapter 4: Ultimate Victim

(Vignette April Tsukinose)

At this point in the school life, Vigne already got up like it was a regular day back home, which meant with a good mood, and ready for another day. She stretched and took a shower, before starting to write something down with the notepad in her room. It was so early in the morning that the Monokuma Announcement didn't even play yet.

She started to write down some rules she thought of, to make sure nothing would happen. Those included simple things, like always watch your back, up to more complicated rules that had to be discussed. One such rule was that everyone should try to always have at least two other people around, that way no one would even try to kill someone.

Honestly, her position as a leader was the best thing that could've happened to her in this building. She enjoyed the job and wanted to ensure everyone's safety. Yesterday, Jaune even approached her, and they sat down to discuss possibilities of keeping everyone alive. She'd learned that he was a leader back home himself, and thus was able to give her some tips.

After she was done with the notes, she reviewed them, as the well-known announcement started to play.

"Good morning, everyone! It is now 7 a.m., and nighttime is officially over! Time to rise and shine! Get ready to greet another beee-yutiful day!"

And with that, the next order of business started. The morning assembly. It had become a routine to assemble in the dining hall every morning, to discuss the next steps, and eat breakfast, always prepared by Nano, someone Vigne was getting along with pretty well.

She left her room and went to the hall. As always, she was one of the first people there, as expected of a leader. The only other people there were Nano, who was already preparing food, and Kagami, who always woke up fairly early in the morning.

She sat down at the table after taking a cup of coffee from the kitchen and waited for everyone to arrive. It didn't take long until almost everyone else came in. All sat down at the tables and started eating.

"I hope it tastes well," Nano asked.

"As always!" Hakase yelled out excited.

"Hey, Hakase?" Kazuma asked. "You built Nano, right?" The Professor nodded with a piece of bread in her mouth. "Can you modify her too?"

At that, Aqua stared daggers at him.

"I could, but I don't have any tools."

"We guys have a toolkit." Sun pointed out. "Can't you use that?"

Hakase thought for a second. "In theory, yes. But I also need some other stuff, like materials, enough heat and so on. And some ordinary tools won't do the job either."

"What would you want Hakase to build into Nano anyways?" Jaune asked.

"Something to get us out of here. Like an RPG, or Grenade Launcher." At that, Kazuma noticed Hakase staring at him.

"Where would I even get the Grenades and Rockets from?"

"Good point."

Out of the corner of her eye, Vigne noticed Satania standing up, and leaving the hall. "What's with her?" Nano asked as she sat down next to Vigne.

"I don't know. Come on."

Nano nodded, and they stood up, following Satania out of the room, and into the hallways. They saw her entering Raphiel's room.

"What is she doing in Raphiel's room?"

Vigne shrugged. "Wasn't she in the dining hall?"

"Now that you mention it... I don't know." With that statement, a dark, speck started to grow in Vigne's head.

She ran to the room, followed by Nano, and grabbed the doorknob. The door opened without hesitation, and as soon as she entered...

...the world around her stopped turning, while everything she tried to build up over the last few days came crashing down. All the conversations, all the plans, had been for nothing. Before she could even react, she fell onto her knees.

In front of them, Raphiel was in her bed, which was colored a dark crimson. Her blanket covered most of her body, and her smile had completely vanished.

And then there was Satania, who was kneeling on the ground, crying. She had her hands buried deep into the carpet.

Nano leaned against the wall, trying to comprehend what was going on. "Wh- Why?"

"This... is... that can't be!" Vigne screamed.

Then, the monitor came to life. "A body has been discovered!

"How- how could this happen?"

"After a certain amount of time, which you may use however you like, the class trial will begin!"

"RAPHIEL!" Vigne screamed.

It felt like an eternity until the others arrived, all pouring into the dorm room, and trying to keep their composure. Obviously, it wasn't working.

"No!" Gabriel yelled and ran up to the corpse. She tried to pull it out of the bed as if it would do anything. Suddenly, a hand grabbed her shoulder and dragged her back. "Let me go!"

"No!" She turned around and saw Kazuma. Even he looked shocked. "She's dead, Gab. Dead. No matter what you do, she'll not come back. And all you're doing right now is tempering with the crime scene."

Gabriel scoffed, and crossed her arms, before sitting down in a corner.

"I- I can't even revive her..." Aqua said in tears.

"Who did this? Show yourself!" Sun yelled and looked around at everyone.

"Well well well. Seems like it finally happened.." Everyone turned towards the source of the voice and saw Monokuma standing in the corner, applauding. "I have something for you guys!"

"Leave us alone, asshole!" Satania screamed. "Don't you see we're not in the mood right now?"

"Oh, but I think you want it if you want to survive. Let's see." He walked up to Vigne and gave her a little tablet. "I present to you... The Monokuma File!"

"What?" Vigne said, still in tears.

"I've gathered all I could find, or see, about the case, and made the File. It should help you out. Anyways, good luck with your investigations!"

"I- I don't want to do this..." Mabel said crying.

"Well, not that I care. But be sure that this is mandatory if you don't want to get executed. Honestly, I think this is going to be a lot of fun. U-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu." Monokuma left laughing, and it echoed on for what felt like forever.

"We have to do this," Umaru said calmly. "As much as it pains me, now's not the time to cry. We have to find out who did this, or, well, you know."

"She's right," Yuuko said. "Although I have my suspicion."

"Who?"

Yuuko looked at Satania, who stepped back in response. "Me?"

"You always where the victim of her pranks. Do I have to remind you of yesterday?" Mio asked.

"Yeah, it would make sense for her to kill Raphiel," Konata added. "Additionally, she was the first one to get here."

"I- It wasn't- IT WASN'T ME!" Satania screamed and ran out of the room crying.

"We need someone to watch over the scene," Kagami suggested, ignoring Satania for now. "Otherwise, the culprit could temper with the evidence."

"I'll do it." Sun offered. "Anyone wanna join me?"

"Here." Mio raised her hand.

"You sure you don't want to investigate?" Jaune asked.

"Don't worry. We're probably the ones who can beat someone up the easiest." Mio replied. "And we can take a look at the crime scene without any problems."

"Okay, let's investigate," Jaune said. "Even though it pains me." Everyone left, leaving only Vigne, Gabriel, Nano, Mio, and Jaune.

Vigne stood back up and looked around. Gabriel was still sitting in the corner, her face buried in her hands.

"Vigne?" Everyone looked to the door and saw Satania peeking in.

"Come in."

"It wasn't me. You have to trust me!" She pleaded.

"I know," Vigne assured her and put a hand on her shoulder. "If you did that, you wouldn't have reacted the way you did."

"Thank you."

"Yeah, you definitely didn't do that," Gabriel said through her hands. "You aren't smart enough to even think of a crime like this."

"I believe you too," Nano assured.

"I'm not so sure." Mio threw in. "She is the most likely person to hold a grudge against Raphiel."

"Hey, it may not seem like it, but I considered her a friend!" Satania yelled. "And now... She's gone."

"We can't decide yet." Jaune threw in. "We don't have any evidence."

"What was that thing Monokuma gave you anyway?" Nano asked.

"Right." Vigne opened the device, and started reading out loud.

"Victim: Raphiel Ainsworth Shiraha.

The time of Death was around 0:30 am.

The victim was killed in her own dorm room.

Cause of death are multiple stabwounds in the abdomen and lungs."

"It's a description of the body," Sun muttered. "So she was killed by getting stabbed?"

"According to the File," Vigne said, and took a deep breath, before walking up to the body. It sounded like it, and she was pretty sure that was the reason. No one could survive being stabbed into vital body parts multiple times.

"Whoah, hold it!" Mio yelled.

"Calm down, I'm just investigating the body."

"All right, but I'll keep an eye on you," Mio said, and watched over the investigation.

"I'm so sorry..." Vigne muttered and started to take a look at the body, while Jaune looked over her shoulder. It didn't take long to find the first clue. "Huh."

"What is it?" Sun asked.

"It looks like her Achilles tendon was cut." Vigne cringed at the thought of that.

"What? Why?" Satania asked, still tearing up.

"Maybe they tried to avoid a fight." Jaune thought out loud.

"It would make sense," Gabriel added through her tears. "Raphiel was an incredibly light sleeper. You could drop a needle next to her, and she'd wake up."

Vigne continued to look over the body, and slowly pulled back the red blanket. Even though the entire body of Raphiel was blood-stained, it was easy to see where it came from. "The File's right. She was stabbed in the lungs and abdomen."

"Would that even be lethal for an Angel?" Satania asked.

"From a biological perspective, demons and angels aren't really different from humans," Vigne explained. "Except for some affects chemicals can have."

She put the blanket back up and led out a deep sigh, relieved to be done with this task. "Is there anything else in here?"

"We'll try to look around a bit," Sun assured. "You, Jaune, Nano, and Satania try to find clues elsewhere. It's better to split up."

"I'd like to stay here," Satania said. "I- I want to say my goodbyes."

"No problem," Nano said. "Come on, let's go."

With that, they left the crime scene. But as soon as they left the room, Nano turned around. "What are you doing?" Jaune asked,

"Checking something." Vigne noticed how Nano led her hand slide across the handle before she nodded. "Okay, I'm done."

"What did you do?"

"I looked if the handle showed any signs of being tempered with. But it looks like no one tried to break in."

"So they had a key?" Jaune asked.

"Possibly. But there are other possibilities. Maybe Raphiel just left her door open, maybe her lock never worked properly." Nano explained. "Any idea where to look ne-"

She was interrupted by the sounds of someone coughing heavily, and they ran off, following the sound. They saw Umaru, trying to catch her breath, leaning against the wall outside the garbage room.

"Is everything okay?" Jaune asked as he helped her by patting her back, hoping it would help her with getting air into her lungs.

"Y- Yeah."

"What happened?" Nano asked.

"The Garbage room. There's some sort of gas inside."

"Gas?" The three gasped in shock. Did someone plant poison gas in there?

"Okay, let me go in," Nano said.

"Are you crazy?" Umaru asked. "You're going to die!"

"Forgot that I'm a robot?" She stepped inside, and the other three waited, hoping that Nano would be fine. Seconds turned into minutes before the door opened again.

"And? Found anything?"

"The Incinerator was turned on," Nano replied. "The gas came out of there."

"So someone just threw something away that shouldn't be burned..." Jaune sighed. "Maybe we should hang up a plan or something."

"That can wait until after the trial," Vigne said. "Umaru? Try not to go in there, and ask Monokuma if he can do something against it."

The girl nodded. "No problem. I'll wait here and try to warn the others."

"And now?"

"Wait a moment..." Jaune said, and turned towards Umaru. "Where are the others? You didn't go alone, did you?"

"No, I was with Kagami and Aqua. But they decided to check the dorm rooms while I looked inside the Garbage Room."

"We should make sure to talk with them later." Vigne reminded everyone.

"I think they'll approach us by themselves. They would need our keys after all." Nano said.

"Okay then. What now?"

"What about the Dining Hall? There could be clues there." Jaune pointed out.

"Good idea. Let's go." With that, they went into the hall. There was nothing too different about it.

A couple of people were sitting at the tables, namely Hakase and Konata. It looked like the latter was trying to comfort the terrified girl. Both had a cup of tea and looked up as the three entered.

"Hey. Found anything useful?" Konata asked.

"Well, we checked the body," Jaune explained. "Other than that, not really. Then again, the Garbage Room was full of gas, so that might be a clue. But it could just as well be caused by someone burning the wrong thing in the incinerator."

"W- What gas?"

"I don't know," Nano said. "I guess carbon dioxide or something." She approached the kitchen but turned around again. "I'm going to take a look around the kitchen. Maybe I find something."

"Good luck," Hakase said sobbing. "I can't believe she's dead. Or that one of us killed her..."

"I can't believe it either," Jaune said. "But from what it seems, it appears to be the truth, and we simply can't ignore that. Partially thanks to Monokuma's sick game."

"You didn't happen to find anything useful, right?" Vigne asked.

"We didn't really search," Konata explained. "I wanted to look through here, but then I saw her and decided to help her out. But... I met Raphiel last evening. She said it was around 9:30."

"Really? Where was she?"

"She said that she wanted to do her laundry. Like apparently everyone did that day." The Ultimate Otaku explained.

"That could be helpful." They looked to the side, as Nano left the kitchen.

"Found anything?"

"The Gravestone is till in the trash bin. And something seems wrong with the kitchen equipment."

"What was wrong?" Vigne asked.

"I think it might be best not to mention it. If the culprit hears us, they could try to destroy the evidence. I'll bring it up during the trial."

"Ugh, this whole thing really puts a line between everyone, didn't it?" Konata asked.

"Obviously. Someone dies and we're supposed to find out who of us did it." Jaune sighed. "It's pretty hard."

"Is there anywhere else we can look?" Nano asked.

Vigne thought for a moment. They already checked the most important rooms. But there was one room that Konata mentioned, one they didn't visit. "The Laundry Room."

They left Konata and Hakase alone and went into the Laundry room. And it looked like they weren't the only ones there. The Pines were also searching the place.

"Hi." Dipper greeted. "I guess you decided to look through here too?"

"Yep. Konata said that Raphiel went here yesterday." Jaune said.

"That explains the clothes," Mabel said and pointed at an open washing machine. "I didn't know whom they belonged to, but someone didn't take his laundry out of the machines. I suppose it's hard to do if you're... ya know."

"What did the Monokuma File say about her death?"

"Wait..." Vigne took the little device and opened up the File in question. "According to this, 0:30 in the morning. When I remember correctly, then Raphiel used to leave her clothes inside the washing machine overnight. I wouldn't be surprised if she did it here too."

"But she never got her clean clothes back..." Dipper muttered. "We need to get on top of this."

"Yeah, we don't have anything that leads us to the culprit," Vigne said. "If Aqua and Kagami don't find anything..."

"Then Monokuma will kill us all." Mabel finished.

"Actually, I think there might be a couple of things that already point to a person." Nano interrupted. "But it might be better if we find out more first so that we can arrive at a decisive conclusion."

"And where are we supposed to look?" Vigne asked.

"What about Raphiel's room?" Jaune suggested. "We could try to look around again. And maybe Sun or Mio found something."

"Good idea. Let's go."

"We'll keep looking here," Dipper said. "Maybe we can find something in her clothes."

The trio left the laundry room and quickly went into the room of the victim. Sun and Mio were still guarding the scene, while Gabriel still sat in the corner. Satania was sitting on a chair, her head on the table. A trail of tears was visible. "Hey, you're back."

Jaune nodded. "We thought it might be a good idea to look through this place again."

"Well, we actually found something." Mio pointed out. "There are holes in the matress."

"Holes in the matress?" Vigne asked. "Where?"

"At her ankles. We think the culprit might have used them to cut her Achilles Tendon." Sun said. "Also, there's something we found in the drawer."

"Which would be?"

"Ask Satania and Gabriel."

"Gabriel? Can you come to the table, please?" Vigne asked.

The angel stood up, and went to the table, her movement even more unmotivated than usual. "We found this thing." She pulled a piece of paper out form under Satania. It looked like a letter.

"A letter?"

"Yeah. I got the same one." Sun replied.

"As far as we know, everyone did," Mio added. "But I never looked into mine, also just like everyone else did."

"I guess everyone was too scared," Gabriel added. "But we opened hers, and we found something inside." She opened the letter and pulled out what looked like a photo.

Vigne took it and saw a happy family. And in the middle of it was Raphiel, smiling brightly. "T- This is her family..."

"After I saw it, I opened mine..." Satania said through her tears. "It was a picture of my family. I think we all got the same thing."

"Monokuma..." Vigne grumbled. "How did he get those pictures..."

"I have no idea," Mio said.

Vigne took another glance at the picture, before taking another look at Raphiel's dead body. It was hard to believe that the child on the picture and the corpse on the bed where the same person. They looked nothing alike, but at the same time, they were unmistakenly the same being.

Suddenly, the monitor came to life. "Hello, everyone. Listen, I'm already getting bored, and I think you've found a sufficient amount of evidence. So I'd say, why don't we start the trial already. Please go to the big, red doors on the first floor. I'll be waiting."

"It's already starting?!" Satania yelled. "But..."

"Stop," Vigne said. "You know as well as I do that we can't just defy Monokuma."

"What about the body?" Sun asked.

"We'll ask Monokuma about that," Gabriel assured. "For now, let's find the bastard who killed Raphi."

The group left the crime scene. Luckily, it looked like their E-Handbook was recording the found evidence, meaning they didn't have to carry it all with them. However, it looked like only the one who actually found it got the recording.

After going through the door, they found themselves in a small room, that led directly to an elevator. Almost everyone else was already here, except for Konata and Hakase.

"So, Catania, ready to face your judgment?" Yuuko asked.

The girl gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. "I told you... It wasn't me."

"That we will see..." Umaru said.

The door behind them opened, and the last two remaining members stepped in. "Hey..." Hakase said.

"What now?" Konata asked.

"Now we'll start the Trial!" Monokuma yelled excited as he appeared. "It looks like everyone is here."

"Almost... It doesn't feel the same. Without Raphiel and all." Gabriel said sadly.

"Don't be so sad." The Bear replied. "After all, if you manage to uncover the culprit, you can exert your just revenge. But for now, please all step into the elevator. It will take you down to the courtroom."

"Courtroom?"

"Of course. We need an appropriate trial site, after all."

With that, everyone stepped into the elevator, and it started to descend. The sound of metal clashing against metal accompanied the silence. Nobody knew what to say, and everyone seemed suspicious of everyone else. The only one who seemed composed were Nano and Aqua. Vigne used the time to go through all the evidence in her head, and guessed that everyone else did the same with what they knew.

And then, the door opened and led to the trial site.


Students alive: 16


And Chapter 4.

Well, looks like someone's dead, and the first trial will begin.

Let's see how many can guess whodunnit.

Also, as a little Info, the Trials will always be from the view of the same person who led the investigation, meaning this trial will be from the view of Vigne.

RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth; Gravity Falls belongs to Disney; KonoSuba belongs to Shousetsuka ni Narou; Nichijou belongs to Kadokawa Shoten; Gabriel DropOut belongs to ASCII Media Works; Himouto! Umaru-chan belongs to Shueisha; Lucky Star belongs to Kyoto Animation; DanganRonpa belongs to Spike Chunsoft