Dinner was rather uneventful. Leon and Mondo had come, but they made sure to sit at different tables. All the students made more of an attempt to go back to their usual routine of chatting, but Makoto suspected that deep down, a few of them were still anxious about what had happened to their loved ones. Whatever the case might be, he decided to keep appearances up and not bring the topic up at all. To make the others more anxious about it would be what Monokuma wanted, after all.

Later that night, Makoto and Sayaka walked to their doors, tired. At least she seemed to be getting better and nearer to her usual disposition; it had been only a day since they had last seen those horrible videos, and it was a miracle that no one had tried to kill another yet.

"Are you all right, Makoto?" Sayaka asked, as if she were the one in better health.

"Yeah, but…" Makoto sighed. "I can't stop thinking about the outside world, you know? If Monokuma got my family, and no one's been trying to rescue us, then what the heck is going on outside?"

"W-We can only guess," Sayaka said. "Hopefully, we'll be out of here soon. I-I don't want to think that no one's noticed what's going on here!"

After they bade each other good night, Makoto went back into his room. He wanted nothing more than a long rest and wished that everything that he had just seen were all a dream.

It would be nice if things could resolve themselves that way, but he could not but think about whether what would happen tomorrow. For most of his life, he had lived life as it had gone by, not thinking too much about the far future. The most that he had had to worry about had been only tests and school projects. Once he saw that he had nothing better to do, he took a quick shower. When nighttime came, he headed to bed, and for a moment, he slept, wishing to be away from this reality again.

But his rest ended abruptly when he heard knocking on his door. To his surprise, it was Mondo.

"Mondo! What's up?" Makoto asked, curious as to why the delinquent was looking for him.

"I've got something to talk to you about," he said, scowling. "Follow me."

Mondo turned around and headed to his room, which was directly opposite to Makoto's.

What's up with him? Makoto thought. The last notable time when he had seen the delinquent, he had sworn to find a way out. Could this have something to do with it?

Makoto shut his door and headed into Mondo's room. Immediately greeting him were big flags that all showed the name of his gang, the Crazy Diamonds. A great black banner commemorating his gang leaned against the bathroom's adjacent wall. There were also a bunch of magazines on his bed, and hair care products on his shelf. It definitely gave the room a delinquent vibe, also raised the question as to how Monokuma had customized their rooms like this. After all, these were doubtless Mondo's belongings, so how had he gotten them?

"What's the matter?" Makoto asked.

"Look over there." Mondo pointed at his bed.

Makoto turned around, but all of a sudden, something that felt like a napkin was put over his mouth, and he could no longer breathe. In fact, for some reason, he grew sleepier and sleepier, and the biker himself held him back with his arms. He tried moving forwards, only for Mondo to tighten his grip on him.

"Sorry, pal," Mondo said, "but it's all part of the plan. Someone has to be it."

And a second or two later, Makoto's sight turned black.


Makoto woke up, only to find himself back in his room. He could have sworn that he had fallen asleep or something in Mondo's room, but no, there were no flags or hair care products. Instead, his room was as plain as plain could be, and he was lying on his bed.

If it had all been a dream, then why had he a slight headache right now? And come to think of it, what time was it now? Mondo had apparently awakened him sometime after nighttime began, but if it were morning, then he had missed the morning announcement.

This was something that he had to talk with the others about. He had to go ask Mondo about it later; now that he thought about it, he was sure that Mondo had knocked him out. It was definitely an underhanded move, and he would not let this be ignored.

He thought to take a shower first, however. He needed to get ready for his day as usual and meet up with Sayaka later. Hopefully, Junko would not be there; he did not mind her, but he preferred some alone time with Sayaka. The last time that that three of them had hung out together, she had gone on and on about her trip to the mountains, which tale felt as if it had taken days to finish.

Makoto rose a bit, only to feel a bit of pain from his chest, for some reason. He felt his jacket for anything odd, and when nothing came up, he ended up opening it and lifting up his shirt, only to widen his eyes and nearly start.

There, to his utter horror, were a few bandages covering cuts done on his chest.

Wh-What the?! Makoto felt the bandages, only to wince upon touching the wounds. It did not hurt too badly, and the wounds appeared to be not very deep, but it was enough to make him start panicking about what had happened to him. Without thinking, he quickly felt his body's other parts, praying that these were the only injuries. Though he found that there were no other injuries, that was still not enough to let him rest easy. He had to find out now what in the world had happened to him.

Only when Makoto got up from his bed, however, did he see that his room was an utter mess. The urn, which he had gotten from the gym entrance room, now lay broken on the ground. The table and the trash can nearby had been toppled as well. And most confusing and surprising of all, there was a small amount of blood on the floor. The more he looked at it, the more confused he became.

Wh-What the heck?! Makoto thought. He was sure that he had not done this, even if he had no memory of it. Was it… Mondo?

For a moment, a spell of dizziness came to him, and he could do nothing but fall back on his bed, trying to make sense of what had happened last night. However hard he tried to remember, however, he had no memory of it. He must have been asleep at the time, but still, if he had been simply sleeping, then why were there bandaged wounds on his body?

Eventually, he found the will to get back up and find out what had happened. Lying in bed relieved him greatly, but it would get him nowhere at a time like this.

He slowly made his way to the bathroom door, making sure not to disturb anything in his room. He had to ask the others about this later, of course, and it was best that he leave the scene intact. Hoping that there had been no damage to it, he opened the door, only to freeze upon seeing what awaited him.

There, sitting by the opposite wall, a knife thrust into the chest, was Mondo Owada's body.

Makoto's eyes widened, his shock and confusion growing fast. For a moment, he thought that all of this was but a nightmare brought upon by exhaustion. The video of his family had taken much out of him, and he was simply asleep. That was the simplest explanation.

But the more he looked at the body, the more he found it harder to deny what lay before him. The dead delinquent's sight, the blood covering the bathroom walls, the sheer pain and shock etched onto his eyes, and the bloody knife wormed themselves into his mind, blocking all else. He screamed, no longer able to tell himself that what was in front of him was not real.

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, Mondo's dead, Mondo's dead, Mondo's dead!

Trembling, he backed away from the body, as if it were a mad hound about to bite him. He ran out of the room and—

"Good morning, Makoto!" Taka stood by his own door, beaming. "Nice to see you're awake as well! Let's head to the dining hall together—"

"There's no time for that!" Makoto yelled, not worrying about how weird he looked. "There's a dead body in my bathroom!"

"Wh-What? What are you talking about?"

Makoto, not wanting to explain it in words, quickly took Taka to his bathroom, where the body still lay. As soon as he saw the bloody sight, Taka screamed with so much fright that he sounded more like a ghost ready to attack him.

"I… I've got to wake the others up at once!" Taka ran out of the room, still screaming.

Though hearing Taka's frantic knocking, Makoto focused on gazing at the dead body, unable to stop thinking about how the body had been full of life only hours ago. He had talked to the man and had hoped to know him more, for they were classmates, however bad this situation now might be. Deep down, he had thought that Mondo was not that bad a man. But now his body lay here, all life wrongfully bereft from it. Someone had taken it from him, which was enough to give him another spell of dizziness.

What broke him out of his spell, however, was the sound of a bell from the monitor.

"A body has been discovered!" It was Monokuma's voice. "Everyone, please gather at Makoto Naegi's room. This is important, so be sure not to miss it!"

The announcement ended, leaving him confused.

"Are you all right, Makoto?" It was Kyoko, who looked unusually unfazed by the bloody sight. Standing behind her was Byakuya, who looked at the scene more seriously than fearfully. How long had the two been here? Regardless, he had only one answer for her.

"No!" Of course he was not all right. A dead body of one of his classmates was in his bathroom, for crying out loud. "M-Mondo's dead! I… I… I don't want to believe it, but it's true!"

Soon, all the others were now here, utterly aghast at the sight. It took them roughly a few minutes for them to gather.

"Holy crap, what the hell is this?!" Hiro exclaimed.

"N-No! Th-This… This can't be true!" Chihiro said, covering her mouth.

"Mondo's… dead?" Junko said. "N-No way! A-Are you, like, sure about that?"

Kyoko approached the body and touched it, her face showing no fear or disgust at all. Some of the students gasped when she touched it without any hesitation.

"No, he's definitely dead," she said calmly. "He's been dead for the last few hours, it seems."

Makoto frantically looked around and saw Sayaka among the crowd. But when he reached out to her, she only responded with a look of confusion and suspicion.

"M-Makoto…" she said fearfully. "Did you…?"

"Wait… No!" Makoto said, realizing what she and a few others now thought. "It's not like that at all! I only—"

But before Makoto could explain himself, appearing by the bedroom door was Monokuma, their self-called headmaster. The students gasped once more upon seeing the bear; it still took time to remind themselves that he could apparently appear anywhere in this school. As soon as black and white entered his sight, Makoto felt his anger rise threefold.

"Good morning, students! I was expecting someone to make a move after I gave you my gift," Monokuma said, as cheerful as ever. "And it took, what, about two days! I was expecting one of you to make a move earlier, but you can't win them all, I guess."

"You!" Makoto yelled, pointing at him. "You did it! You killed Mondo!"

"Who, little old me?" Monokuma said. "Hate to break you, but I don't attack anyone unless that person has violated a school regulation! And I assure you that despite being a no-good delinquent, Mondo did nothing that went against the rules, other than his impolite attack on me the first day."

"Then who did it?" Mukuro asked. "Who killed him?"

"Oh, come on! You already know the answer!" Monokuma said, raising his paw. "The one who killed him… is one of you!"

No one could say anything back to the bear. The thought had already entered their heads, but for him to say it aloud and confirm what they had most feared bereft them of any words.

Taka stared at the body, mouth agape while tears flowed from his wide red eyes. A few others were crying as well; they might not have liked him, but he too was a man who had loved ones and dreams to fulfill, and the life of a fellow man had now been taken from them. Even Leon, who clearly had had a low opinion of the biker, could hardly say anything, his face looking as if it had never shown any happiness at all.

"Don't you remember what I told you at the very beginning?" Monokuma said. "The only way to escape is to murder one of your classmates. And one of you decided to kill Mondo Owada so as to graduate!"

"No!" Makoto was not thinking about what he was saying, but he did not care. "You're lying! You have to be! You're the one who trapped us here!"

"You just don't get it, do you?" It was Byakuya, who was unusually calm, as if having expected this to happen. "It's in the game's rules. The one who killed him simply thought it risky enough a move to do it."

"Exactly!" Monokuma said. "Now that all fifteen of you are here, I can say at last that someone here is a killer!"

All of them began to look at one another, eyeing their peers with fear, suspicion, and mistrust. Some of them protested, showing their unbelief that not only had someone killed a fellow human, but also the killer now stood among them.

"But who?!" Taka said wrathfully, tears flowing from his eyes. "Who thought to kill a fellow student?!"

"More importantly," Byakuya said, "let's suppose that you're right. One of us killed Mondo. Then does that mean the killer may now graduate? That's what it says in the Graduation Clause, is it not?"

"Puhuhuhu!" Monokuma covered his mouth with one of his paws. "How naive you are to think that's all there is to it, when we haven't gotten to the real thing yet! Let me explain to you the second part of graduation, now that we have a dead student to work with! You do remember Regulation 6, do you not?"

"'Anyone who kills a fellow student and becomes "blackened" will graduate, unless they are discovered'," Celeste said. "Are you talking about the second half?"

"Bwahaha! Right on the mark!" Monokuma said. "Anyone who kills a fellow student also has to get away with it! And of course, we need a system to see whether it's actually been gotten away with! And that system is… the class trial!"

"Wh-What?" Sayaka said, face whitening a bit. "Class… trial?"

Monokuma then explained to them how the class trial worked. It seemed like any ordinary class trial that one might find in an elementary school, but when Monokuma mentioned "punishment", the students looked at him fearfully.

"B-By 'punishment'," Chihiro said, tears flowing from her eyes, "y-you don't mean…"

"Execution!" Monokuma said. "Beheading, hanging, lethal injection! Once you get it, it's all over for you! No second chances at the game of life!"

Almost all the students gasped in horror at the rules that they now played under. Not long after, Monokuma updated everyone's handbook, so the Regulations now reflected the procedures of the class trial.

"Th-That is totally crazy!" Junko said. "W-We have to figure out which of us, like, murdered him?!"

"That's the rule, missy," Monokuma said. "You're not exempt from it, even if you're horribly traumatized by whatever you've just seen! Now then, to help you with your investigations…" Monokuma showed them a small black book that had the number 1 on it. "This little file has all the information I've gathered about the death in question. I call it… the Monokuma File! Since not all of you are experts at examining dead bodies, I've done all the hard work for you! It has what you need to know about the circumstances and cause of death!"

Not all of you? Makoto thought, confused by what he meant. As far as he could tell, none of them had had experience in that.

"How could you figure all that out?" Hifumi asked after everyone got a Monokuma file.

"Oh, that's easy!" he said. "The surveillance cameras picked everything up! And that's how I know who killed Mondo Owada as well!"

"And thus you can see whether our answer is correct," Kyoko said. "In a way, that's somewhat comforting."

"Now you're getting it!" the bear said. "And there's something else you should know: you remember that I announced that a body had been discovered? Well, the announcement only plays when three people or more find the body."

Makoto wondered what the purpose of that particular guideline was, but he dreaded to think of the fun that Monokuma had with the rules in the first place.

"Now then, if you want to do well, put all your effort into your investigation for the next few hours! And I'll make an announcement when it's time for the class trial!"

Laughing, Monokuma disappeared, the fifteen students now filled with utter horror at what had been told them. Right now, in this very room, stood the murderer of one of their fellow classmates, and they were expected to figure out who it was. And if they did not, everyone but the guilty would die here. Makoto wanted to say something, but the words would not leave his mouth. Everything was just too horrible to accept.

"Well? What do you plan to do now?" It was Kyoko Kirigiri, who once again looked unfazed at recent events. "Now's no time to wallow in your sadness. We don't have the luxury of standing around all day deciding who doesn't deserve our trust."

"Yes," Celeste said, looking not at all sorrowful that a fellow classmate was now gone. "Mourning the dead is nothing but a waste of our precious time."

"What the heck?!" Hina said. "How could you say that?! Don't you feel sad that one of us is dead right now?!"

Celeste sighed, looking more annoyed than saddened. "Haven't I told you? He who cannot adapt dies. And it seems my gamble was right on the mark. Mondo Owada got what he had earned."

"What an awful thing to say!"

"Awful, but not wrong." Celeste gave her usual smile. "The sooner you accept it, the longer you will live."

"P-Please… Stop arguing," Chihiro said, but neither of them had heard her, for the two girls continued their petty bickering.

"Enough," Kyoko said, glancing at the corpse. "Our main objective right now is to expose the killer. If we do not, then we'll all die here."

"Th-The killer?" Toko said, looking away from the body. "I-Isn't it obvious who killed him? Th-The one living h-here, of c-course!"

Everyone glared at Makoto.

"W-Wait, I didn't kill him!" Makoto said. "I only found the body!"

"Ah, yes, it happened to appear in your bathroom, just like that," Byakuya scoffed.

"Everyone, don't rush to conclusions yet," Kyoko said, among the few who seemed not to have already made up their minds. "We cannot say for sure that Makoto's guilty without an investigation first."

"Yeah, we may as well check everything first," Leon said. "Makoto doesn't seem like the kind of guy to do this, if you ask me!"

"I agree," Mukuro said. "At a time like this, we cannot afford to be lazy and make a judgment that quickly."

All the others resigned themselves to the lack of choice that they now had in the matter. Right now, Makoto was most concerned about getting his name cleared.

Mondo… We'll find your killer, I promise you! Makoto thought.

And thus began the investigation.


Well, here's the first murder! Does it surprise you to see that the first victim is Mondo? From a meta perspective, it's kind of obvious, given the increased amount of focus on him in the last few chapters, and first-case victims are always built up to be significant in some way. In the game, Sayaka is the only one who already has had a connection to Makoto, and the game obviously tries to make her look like Makoto's assistant, to the point that it even suggests that you hang out with Sayaka when introducing the Free Time system.

Anyway, the ramifications of this are pretty obvious; Kiyotaka will never become bros with Mondo, and Chihiro will not be killed by him. And with Mondo's death, there go all the Mastermind Mondo theories you may have had.

Also, I've begun work on my SYOC fic, so if you're interested, you can check it out!