Chapter 11: Radicals and Extremes- Radical-5

Disclaimer: I do not own Total Drama or Danganronpa.

"Dammit," muttered Duncan, staring at Sierra's dead body. Trent, Gwen and Jo surrounded the body with him. Once the body finding announcement had played, nearly everyone had rushed up tone stairs to find Sierra's dead body just laying there. After that, everyone else, who hadn't stayed behind, had already left to look for clues or locked themselves inside their rooms in fright. Lindsay, meanwhile, was still cowering outside with DJ comforting her.

He grit his teeth. "What happened?"

Dawn shrugged, staring at the body in front of her. "I don't know. Lindsay was the first one to find her." She glanced at a clock nailed to the wall. It was exactly 9:36.

Monokuma kicked Sierra's body, without even seeming to care what would happen to it. "Yep," he confirmed. "She's dead."

Gwen glared at the bear. "Don't do that!" she ordered, glaring at it.

Monokuma crossed his arms and snorted. "So… I guess you don't want the Monokuma File?" He shrugged, when no one answered. "Fine." He waved good-bye. "See ya, idiots!" He started to walk towards the door.

"It's going to be really hard to solve the murder without it." Noah spoke up and narrowed his eyes. "I thought you liked to give fair trials."

Monokuma paused and faced them again. "Yeah, I guess." He jabbed a finger at Gwen. "But she has to apologize first!"

Gwen scoffed. "Um... Why do I have to do anything?" she asked, before earning a nudge form Trent.

"Just do it," he whispered to her. "We need the file or we can't solve anything."

Gwen sighed. "Fine," she mumbled. "I'm sorry."

Monokuma smirked and cupped a paw around his ear. "What was that?" he asked, his smirk still on his face. "I couldn't hear you…"

"I said I was sorry!" Gwen snapped.

Monokuma raised its paws and backed away. "No need to say it like that!" he scolded. He turned back towards the door and pouted. "Fine i guess I'll give you the Monokuma File. Just wait a couple of seconds." He walked out of the room, his shoulders shaking with laughter.

"Damn bear," muttered Gwen.

"I heard that!" shouted Monokuma from outside the hallway.

After a few seconds of silence, Dawn heard a beeping coming from all of their IDphones. Pulling them out, they found the newest Monokuma File, being shown on the bright screen.

Clue: Monokuma File #3

Dawn looked at the rest of them. "Would you like me to read it or…?" she trailed off, unsure of what to say.

Without even bothering to ask, Noah began to read. "The victim is Sierra," he read. "A participant of TDWT. The time of death is estimated to be around 8:00 a.m. The body was discovered in the Weight Room, on the 2nd floor of the school. The cause of death was one blow to the head with a blunt object to the side of her head. She was killed instantly."

Dawn glanced at the clock. "9:39," she mused to herself. "That means she was killed only around and hour and thirty minutes ago."

Duncan glanced at Sierra's dead body. "Does this mean that the investigation time has started?" he asked.

"I guess so," replied Noah, with a sigh. He turned off his IDphone and walked out of the room. "I'm going to go check on something, before I start looking for clues, if you don't mind." He left without even waiting for an answer.

Duncan snorted, once Noah was out of range. "That kid is annoying me a lot." He raised an eyebrow. "I mean where is he even go."

Dawn shrugged and knelt down to inspect Sierra's body. "She has no other injuries," she noticed. She gazed around the room, taking note of the fallen weights and other things that were on the floor, as if they had been knocked down by someone.

Trent followed her gaze. "Well, it seems like Sierra tried to fight off whoever killed her," he concluded from the scene in front of him.

Dawn nodded agreeing with him, as she stood up and took a picture of the room itself.

Clue: Signs of a Struggle

Dawn knelt back down and continued to examine Sierra's body, but found nothing else. "Nothing?" she mumbled sadly, starting to stand back up before something in Sierra's hand caught her eye.

Sliding her fingers inside Sierra's curled fist, she slowly attempted to pull the small slip of paper inside. Dawn pulled out the crumpled piece of paper and smoothed it out, so that it could be read.

Gwen noticed what she was doing. "What's that?"

Dawn gripped the small piece of paper. "It's a note to Sierra…" Her eyes narrowed. "From Cody."

"Cody?!" Jo, who Dawn had completely forgotten was there, snatched the note from her hands with her arm that wasn't broken. She read through it with a fiery look in her eyes. "Sierra, would you please meet me in the weight room around 8:00? I would like to tell you something. Signed, Cody." Jo snorted and waved the note in the air. "So, Cody killed Sierra!" she accused.

Clue: Handwritten note found on Sierra

"Wait." DJ came into the room. "Why would Cody want to kill Sierra? Cody's a pretty nice guy and he would't kill anyone," he said firmly.

Jo waved the note in front of DJ's face. "Yeah!" she mocked. "Well this note says otherwise! And besides," she continued as she glanced at there broken arm. "I wouldn't put it past a guy who caused this to not be able to kill someone."

"Jo… has a point, DJ," Gwen said. "For the past few days, Cody's been acting really strange."

Duncan blinked. "Really?"

Trent nodded. "Yeah," he responded. "Yesterday, he broke Jo's arm." He shrugged. "After doing that, I wouldn't put it past the guy to kill someone that's been annoying him for so long." He glanced at the body with wary eyes.

Clue: Cody's Strange Behavior

Dawn took another long look around the room. "I think that's all that's all I'll find here," she said, to them. "I want to go check some of the other rooms to see if there are any other clues we can find."

DJ winced. "I-I'm going to go and look for Cody," he suddenly announced, running away. His heavy steps could be heard going down the stairs.

"I'm telling you it's Cody!" insisted Jo, as Dawn walked out of the room, leaving the rest of them to explore the room a bit more.

Dawn stopped when she saw the curled up form of Lindsay. "Are you okay?" she asked.

Lindsay sniffed. "I-If I hadn't found it…" she seemed unable to continue.

Dawn placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled reassuringly. "It's alright," she said. "We would've found the body eventually. It's not like you killed her, right?"

"But, but," she mumbled while looking away.

"It's okay," Dawn insisted. "You aren't to blame here." Her gaze narrowed. "It's Monokuma's fault. He shouldn't have trapped us here to begin with."

Lindsay blinked. "But how could he have trapped us?" she asked.

Dawn paused as she mulled over what Lindsay had said. Now that she thought about it, there could've been someone else involved in this entire scheme to trap them here. Maybe they were the one who stole her memory from her.

But who was it?

Dawn stood up. "Don't think about that right now," she said, keeping the smile plastered on her face.

Lindsay nodded slowly. "Okay," she muttered, not bothering to move out of place.

Dawn strolled off, before stopping in front of the door to the medical center. "Maybe there's something in there," she wondered aloud, as she pushed open the door.

The room was pretty much the same as the she left it, when she had first come in about four days ago. A couple of drawers were left open, no doubt from yesterday when everyone had tried to put a cast on Jo, so that wasn't suspicious at all.

Dawn sighed, before noticing something near the floor tucked away underneath a bed. She knelt down and carefully pulled out the object, which was a folder filled to its brim with papers, with some of its contents looking like they had been rifled through quite a lot. "What's this?" muttered Dawn, staring at the label which read "Radical-5". She pulled out a piece of paper and her eyes widened.

Clue: Disease Folder

"Radical-5," she read to herself in her mind. "is a mysterious a bloodborne disease that causes the victim to gain incredible strength for around three days. It is theorized that this is caused by the pathogen sitting down some of the brain's limiters. After this set time, the victim will commit suicide, by killing themselves in any way possible. Usually they will be alone when they do this. Other symptoms include bloodshot eyes, hyperactivity and lowered intelligence when in stressful situations."

"This-this is incredible," stammered Dawn, after she had finished reading.

Clue: Radical-5 Description

Dawn dug through the folder and pulled out a couple more papers. She read them and knit her eyebrows. "After she reached the second day, the subject attempted to murder the therapist. After attempting a few more experiments, we have concluded that Radical-5 might cause homicide that the victim will commit," she read.

Dawn winced when she read that. "So it's possible that someone else will die from it."

Clue: Cases involving Radical-5

Dawn tucked the folder underneath her shoulder and looked into the cabinet where all the different stuff, that Monokuma had told her about, was held. Peering through the stained glass, she found one test tube with a cork that was completely empty. A label that read, "Radical-5" was written on the test tube, looking as if it had been made by someone with sloppy handwriting.

Clue: Empty Test Tube of Radical-5

Dawn looked past it and found a syringe sitting right next to it. It looked used, with a bit of red liquid still inside. Dawn gulped, as she noticed it looked somewhat like blood.

Clue: Used Syringe

"Ding Dong!" An intercom placed near the door crackled to life. "A body had been found! After a set period of time, which should be used for the investigation, a class trial will begin! Happy hunting!"

Dawn stared at the intercom in shock. "What?!" She sounded absolutely shocked. "How...?"

Xxx

Dawn stopped in from of the dance room to find most of the others already there. Some of them like Gwen, Courtney, Heather and Alejandro. "What happened?" She asked.

Heather shrugged. "Why don't you go find out yourself, amnesia girl?" She scoffed.

Dawn noticed that Gwen and Courtney seemed to be tight-lipped, about what was going on, so she didn't bother to ask. Instead, she just push the door open and gasped.

Cody was on the floor, blood flowing from his head, spreading on the floor and making a small puddle of it around the body. He was on his back with a dumbbell on top of his stomach, as if it had fallen on him. Dawn notice his bloodshot eyes that were wide open staring off to one side.

Clue: Bloodshot Eyes

Jo came up from behind her. "Great, our suspect died!" She sounded extremely annoyed.

Dawn winced as she took out her IDphone to read the latest Monokuma File. "You're not even going to feel bad about this?" she asked, quietly.

Jo snorted. "Why should I?" she asked. "The guy gave me a broken arm."

"You're heartless," accused DJ, who was standing off to one side and cradling his pet rat. "You think…"

"Save it," Mike- no, Mal smirked. "It's no use trying to make her have feelings."

"Shut it," growled Jo, taking a step towards him.

"Wait," Brick stood between them. "We should read the Monokuma File," he said, trying to stop the two from fighting each other.

"Fine," grumbled Jo.

Dawn looked between Jo and Brick. For some strange reason she could sense something between the two. A sort of attraction, maybe?

Her thought were interrupted when Brick started to read off of his IDphone. "The victim is Cody," he read. "The time of death is estimated to be around 10:00 a.m. The body was discover in the dance room, on the 2nd floor of the school. The cause of death was one blow to the top of his head with a blunt object. He was killed instantly. Other injuries include a small hole near the shoulder area, that looks to be made with some sort of needle-like object."

Clue: Monokuma File #4

Izzy jumped into the room and blinked when she saw the body. "Wow." She sounded impressed. "Two in one day? That's got to be a record!" She cackled, before pointing to the dumbbell. "What's that?"

Dawn frowned and inspected the dumbbell. "I think it may be the weapon," she replied.

Clue: Dumbbell

"But," Dawn thought, as she narrowed her eyes. "Why is there two bloodstains on either side? It says in both Monokuma Files that both Sierra and Cody was only hit once with a weapon… And we still don't know what killed Sierra…"

Clue: Bloodstains on Dumbbell

"Hey, what's this?" Dawn glanced over to where Izzy had picked up a small backpack. Izzy looked into it and grinned. "Hey it's got some stuff in it."

DJ frowned. "Isn't that Cody's backpack?" he asked.

Dawn held out her hand. "May I see that backpack, Izzy?"

Izzy pouted before dropping the backpack into Dawn's hand. She zipped it open and rummaged around, before pulling out Cody's notepad. On the top was a small letter. Dawn grimaced when she noticed what it was.

Brick noticed this. "What's wrong?" he asked, peeking over her shoulder.

"It's a love letter from Cody," Dawn muttered, sadly. "To Gwen."

Clue: Cody's love letter

Dawn passed around the letter so that everyone in the room could read it. She then peered into the backpack, frowning when she noticed bloodstains on the bottom.

Clue: Backpack

Dawn dropped the backpack and placed it next to her. She began to inspect Cody's injury. His injury was on top of his head. Judging by where the injury was, Dawn figured that the only way that he could have that type of injury is if he was hit on the top of his head. But who was strong enough to lift the weapon….?

Clue: Cody's injury

After finding nothing else of interest on Cody, Dawn stood up and glanced around the room carefully. She noticed DJ standing off to the side and came up to him. She motioned to the rat. "Is he okay?" she asked.

DJ smiled. "Yeah." He then frowned. "But he didn't seem that scared. I assumed that when Cody was… killed, that he would run away. But, I guess not." He shrugged.

Dawn took another glance around the room noticing that nothing seemed to be out of place. The room was exactly the same as it was yesterday.

Clue: No sign of a struggle.

"Ding, Dong!" Monokuma's voice startled Dawn. "Investigation time is up! Please meet me in the elevator room. We shall begin the class trial soon!"

"Already?!" Jo shouted up to the ceiling. "We've only just found Cody's body. Can you give us some more time?!"

"NO!" snapped Monokuma. "You've found enough clues! Now meet me or face punishment!" The intercom turned off.

"Great." Jo groaned. "Just great."

Xxx

Dawn stopped in front of the room and noticed Courtney standing near the elevator, looking at it reluctantly. She came up from behind Courtney and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Eep!" Courtney jumped. She turned around quickly but relaxed when she noticed that it was just Dawn. "Oh it's just you." She glared at her. "Don't scare me like that!"

"Sorry," apologized Dawn. "I just want to know…"

Courtney sighed. "I was just thinking about something I remembered," she muttered.

Dawn raised an eyebrow. "What?" she asked.

Courtney's gaze turned downward. "I remember running into Cody the day after we found all those rooms. He said he was heading towards the medical center for some reason. I didn't bother to ask, but now that I think about it he was acting really strange. He also somehow managed to lose Sierra." She frowned. "Isn't that really strange?"

Clue: Courtney's account

"Hey!" Monokuma appeared out of nowhere, behind them. "Get in there, you ingrates!"

"Fine," grumbled Courtney. She and Dawn walked in, to find everyone else already waiting for them.

"You okay?" Dawn turned around to fine Trent smiling down at her. "I heard about Cody. It sucks." He took a careful glance at everyone. "I was really good friends with him."

Dawn blinked. "Really?"

Trent nodded. "Yeah." He smiled blissfully, remembering the good old days. Memories that Dawn didn't have.

"Single file, please!" Monokuma said, pushing them into the elevator. "I have somewhere to be today, so I don't want to miss it!"

"As if," muttered Noah, as everyone crammed themselves into the elevator.

Dawn watched as the door closed in front of her. As the elevator defended downwards, she thought about all the she found. "Radical-5," she thought. "Does it really play a part in these murders? And why was Cody and Sierra murdered? Why would anyone want them both dead?"

Just as she finished that thought, the doors opened up to reveal, Monokuma lazing around, on a giant throne chair in the back. The walls of the room had a strange striped pattern that seemed to resemble the one on Cody's shirt, because it was colored dark red and dark blue. The rest of the wall was painted a pale beige so that it resembled Cody's shirt even more. Curtains that were the same color as Sierra's hair draped the walls.

Where Cody, Sierra and Anne Maria used to be were pictures of them with bloody Xs running through their faces.

Monokuma smirked and brought out a jar of honey. "Now let's start the third class trial!"

Verbal Bullets:

Monokuma File #3- The victim is Sierra, a participant of TDWT. The time of death is estimated to be around 8:00 a.m. The body was discovered in the Weight Room, on the 2nd floor of the school. The cause of death was one blow to the side of her head with a blunt object. She was killed instantly.

Monokuma File #4- The victim is Cody. The time of death is estimated to be around 10:00 a.m. The body was discover in the dance room, on the 2nd floor of the school. The cause of death was one blow to the top of his head with a blunt object. He was killed instantly. Other injuries include a small hole near the shoulder area, that looks to be made with some sort of needle-like object.

Disease Folder- It was in a different area than before. Some of its contents looks like they have been dug through.

Radical-5 Description- Radical-5 is a bloodborne disease that causes the victim to gain incredible strength for around three days. It is theorized that this is caused by the pathogen sitting down some of the brain's limiters. After this set time, the victim will commit suicide, by killing themselves in any way possible. Usually they will be alone when they do this. Other symptoms include bloodshot eyes, hyperactivity and lowered intelligence when in stressful situations.

Cases involving Radical-5- There are many cases involving Radical-5. However a noteworthy fact is that most of the victims were going through a stressful situation and then killed someone closed to them.

Handwritten note found on Sierra- The note says to meet in the Weight room around 7 a.m.

Dumbbell- The weapon was apparently a dumbbell. It would take someone with considerable strength to lift it above their heads.

Bloodstains on Dumbbell- This dumbbell has two bloodstains on it. One on one side and one on the other side. Strangely enough it was positioned in a way that it looks like it fell on Cody.

Bloodshot eyes- Cody's eyes are bloodshot.

Used Syringe- A Syringe was found on the floor of the room. I looks like it was used and it matches the injury on Cody's shoulder.

Empty test tube of Radical-5- The empty test tube that contained Radical-5 was found in the medical room.

Courtney's Account- Courtney saw Cody running over the medical room, while everyone else was somewhere else.

Cody's strange behavior- Cody has been acting strangely for the past three days.

Backpack- Cody's backpack which was found near his dead body. Bloodstains were found on the bottom.

Cody's love letter- A note to Gwen that Cody did in his handwriting. Seems to bear no relation to the actual case.

Cody's injury- Cody's injury is at the top of his head. The only way he would've been able to be hit there is if it fell on his head or someone hit him over the head.

No sign of a struggle- There is no sign of a struggle where Cody died.

Signs of a struggle- There was a struggle where Sierra died.

Now who killed Sierra and Cody? I'm pretty sure I gave away the answer at one point, so sorry.

Also Radical-5 is a completely fake disease. I thought it might make the case not like the others if I added it in. What do you think about it? It's more of a reference to another game similar to Danganronpa. Anyone want to guess what it is?

And congratulations! You are officially reading my longest story ever. Thank you to everyone who followed, faved and reviewed! :)

Reviews and constructive criticism are appreciated.