Without prompt, the students piled out of the elevator, spreading along the walls of an ornately decorated, circular room. In hues of faded gold and wine red, a carpet bordered a circle of bronze floor as glass light fixtures hung from the ceiling and walls.
Most apparent were sixteen mahogany stands in a wide circle at the centre of the room. The seventeenth, at the opposite side of the elevator, was larger and slightly detached from the circle. Monokuma perched on the large stand, red eye glinting wickedly.
"Upupupupu! Welcome, nouveau detectives, to the Class Trial!" Nobody responded. "Why so shy? Step right up, and take a stand at the spot with your name on it!"
Tentatively, fifteen pairs of feet shuffled to their places. Seishiro looked up and noticed that a stand, where he presumed Yoshikazu would've been, was occupied by a picture frame. It depicted a black and white photograph of the gardener, crossed out in bright pink paint. His heart sank.
"Now," announced Monokuma, "for an explanation of the class trial. This is where you lot debate it out on who the blackened is! At the end of the trial, a vote will be conducted to deduce the culprit. Remember, majority rules! If you vote correctly, the blackened gets an extra-special punishment courtesy of me! But if you vote wrong, it's bye-bye to the rest of you as the culprit gets off scot-free! Upupupu..."
Komi steeled herself. "Punishment...as in execution?"
"Thaaaat's right!" Monokuma replied.
She nodded gravely.
"That means that everything is on the line," said Seishiro. A few people agreed.
"I think we've already established that," muttered Takehiko, barely audible.
Monokuma clapped his hands once. "All righty! This time, you're on trial for the murder of Toshimi Yoshikazu, the Super High School Level Gardener. Let the Class Trial...begin!"
Everyone watched each other warily. "A-alright," began Seishiro.
"What're ya waiting for?! Hurry it up, you slowpokes!" Monokuma shouted.
"Fine," replied Misaki, seeming much more distraught than usual.
"Alright, before we start hurling accusations, let's work through this systematically," said Keiji.
"Okay, how 'bout everyone brings out all the tangible evidence they have?" Etsuko suggested.
Umeko gave Seishiro a pointed look.
"Oh, right." He held up the two plastic bags. "I have these. It's a knife, and-"
"What's that?" Amaya interrupted.
He raised the bag with the white threads in it. "This? It's fabric, or threads, I guess, that I found on one of the pieces of broken clay."
"You realise that someone probably had that stuck to their clothing when they were setting things up in here?" Komi deadpanned.
Seishiro doubted himself for a moment. "Uh, it was actually impaled on one of the shards. There's no way it was there before."
"Makes sense," agreed Yuji.
"Oh! And I have this," called Ryousei. The sailor held up a bloody, short and curved sword with an intricate golden sheath. Seishiro recognised it.
"That's...my sword," said Amaya sheepishly.
Komi raised an eyebrow. "Funny, you're a lot less angry about it than I expected you to be. Could it be that you're the culprit?"
"It's too early for accusations," replied Keiji.
Misaki nodded. "Trust me, she was angry before. Those two -" she gestured at Keiji and Ryousei "- found it and showed her."
Amaya groaned. "Y-yeah, I got pretty pissed. It was gonna make me a prime suspect - and I seriously did not do it."
"At least we have a lead now," spoke Umeko.
"Alright! Does anybody have any more evidence?" Etsuko yelled over the group.
Silence.
"Three pieces of evidence. Three pieces of evidence?!" Katsumi repeated, growing frantic. "How are we supposed to solve anything with that?!"
Takehiko cleared his throat, glaring at the blue-haired composer. "Physical evidence. There are a lot of things that we can't bring with us here."
"That's all the evidence?" Keiji asked. "Well, I suppose we have to make a start with this. How did the murder occur?"
"Let's start with the weapon," announced Shigeko.
"We have the knife and the sword," began Seishiro. "They're both bloody, so they had to have been used at some point in the murder."
Katsuo leaned on his stand, posing with his hand under his chin. "My, have any of you looked at the Monokuma file? Four wounds on the cadaver." The playwright held up four fingers. "Some with the knife, some with the sword."
"Hold up," said Yuji. "Seishiro-kun! Pass me the knife, wouldja?"
Seishiro leaned over the front of his stand and reached past Hitomi to hand Yuji the plastic bag.
The barista looked it over. "Yeah, on this kinda knife, the force is concentrated on the bottom of the blade, so this is effective." He made a chopping motion. "It's pretty hard to stab something with it."
"Yeah, that's what I thought," added Seishiro. "But there are stab wounds and cuts, according to the Monokuma File."
Etsuko nodded, happy that they were getting somewhere. "Meaning that the chest wounds were made by the sword, and the one in the side and middle were made by the knife."
"No," said Takehiko abruptly. "Think about it. There's no feasible way that the culprit could've killed him with both weapons."
"Yes there is," replied Naoki. "One in each hand?"
"That would be clunky and uncoordinated - making it hard to kill someone like him without a huge struggle."
Misaki seethed. "Not for you, Mister Super High School Level Assassin-"
"-Sniper. You don't even care to get my talent right."
"Don't derail it," replied the makeup artist. "It'd be easy for you to kill someone-"
"No," said Hitomi suddenly. "You...wouldn't know...so don't make assumptions."
"Don't side with him-"
Komi raised an eyebrow. "Toru-san, what's up with you? You seem much more aggressive."
Misaki sighed, pulling her long ponytail over her shoulder. "One of us," she said accusingly, "is a filthy liar - a murderer - they betrayed us all to save themselves! Would you not be angry?"
Takehiko pounded his fist on his stand. "We're getting sidetracked. Nishimura-san, testify."
"Wait, what-"
"Toshimi was strong. On the first night, I tried to break out from the greenhouse. To stop me, he essentially grabbed me - and everything that I was holding - off the ground, without much visible effort. If he had the malicious intent, he would have been a dangerous adversary."
Seishiro mulled over the thought that Yoshikazu was now being referred to in past tense. "I...I saw that, yeah. Which means..."
"...that the culprit struck quickly, and likely caught him off guard," finished Etsuko.
Takehiko nodded, signalling that they had reached the same conclusion.
Seishiro spoke up again, more confident. "So the killer used the sword as the murder weapon, since it can inflict both kinds of wounds."
"Because it'd be hard to strike with one weapon, then drop it and pick up another, without the victim fighting back, right?" Ryousei affirmed.
Keiji nodded solemnly, but looked a little conflicted. "That may be true. However, there are a good number of us with athletic talents that could possibly pull it off. We have a martial artist, a professional athlete, someone we can only assume is an assassin, and myself, a yogi."
"That is a good point, but I can ascertain what happened. Allow me to explain," mentioned Umeko, who had been oddly quiet for the trial. "The shallow cut in the abdomen is more recent than the other three wounds, but not by a large margin. It also seems to match up with the shape and size of the knife blade."
"Hold on, how can we believe you? How can we believe any of you? Anyone could be the culprit," interrupted Katsumi.
"You will have to believe me for now. My apologies - I have a way of keeping observations to myself."
Naoki raised his hand. "So why are you questioning Aihara-san and not him?" He jerked a thumb at Takehiko.
"Because you're all questioning him. I-I'm just saying that we need to be cautious of everyone!"
"Listen," sighed Umeko. "I do have concrete evidence, but it was impossible to bring with me. My observation was that, despite there being four wounds on the corpse, there were only three holes in Toshimi's shirt. The recent, shallow cut was the one that did not match up. I have sufficient reason to believe that the wound was inflicted post-mortem."
"My how knowledgable," proclaimed Katsuo. "Makes me wonder why, exactly, you weren't the one targeted. After all, a mortician would be the most potent force in a trial, no?"
"Quiet," the mortician replied sharply.
Keiji brought his hands together. "Back on topic, we now know what happened during the murder. Now, we should piece together how the culprit could have done this."
Seishiro lead on from him. "So, the murder itself was committed when the culprit ambushed the victim in the greenhouse. They first inflicted the wound to his side, then...then killed him by stabbing him in the chest twice. They then used the knife as a red herring, cutting into the body after death and lifting up the clothes to do so."
"Broken pots," prompted Takehiko.
"Oh, uh, either the culprit smashed some pots with the weapon during a struggle, or one of them crashed into the shelf with the flowerpots on it." This was the part that Seishiro wasn't too sure of.
"But either way," mentioned Yuji, adjusting his glasses, "the pot broke close to the culprit, catching a bit of their clothing and ripping it. That's where your fabric scrap comes in."
Katsumi looked around warily. "So, w-what do we have now?"
"We gotta figure out how the culprit got the weapons, what they did with their torn clothing, how they ambushed Toshimi-san, and how they managed to do it all before breakfast." Yuji listed. "Oh, jeez, that's actually a lot. And I thought we were getting somewhere..."
Etsuko smiled. "Oh, come on. We can make this work!"
"Sure, why the hell not," grumbled Naoki. "Let's start with weapons - the sword is kinda confusing, but the knife is from the kitchen, right?"
Yuji spent the most time in the kitchen - a few heads turned to look at him, assuming the barista had taken inventory. "Huh? One of the knives was missing from the kitchen this morning, but I swear it was there last night at dinner."
"Hideaki-san made dinner last night," pressed Komi.
"It'd be easy for him to take it," said Shigeko. "Unless somebody else got in after dinner and before nighttime."
"W-what? It was there, I didn't do anything," the sailor in question replied. "I...I think..."
"I checked after dinner," testified Yuji.
Katsuo tapped a finger to his chin. "Well then. Since it's impossible for anyone to have an alibi during the time of the murder, we can still find people's alibis at the times during which the culprit might have acquired their materials. Ingenious, if I do say so myself. Now, who was last in the kitchen?"
"Me, Amaya-chan and Shigeko-chan," replied Yuji uncertainly.
The food critic cocked her head. "Of course, I was trying to make a dish worthy of my great palate."
Amaya snorted. "Key word there is 'trying'."
"Well, what did you expect? I critique food, I don't make it!" She stomped her foot.
Umeko raised an eyebrow. "That makes you three suspects for now...unless someone came in after you left."
Yuji shook his head. "Nah, we closed up about half an hour before the nighttime announcement."
"Or someone got in there before," added Shigeko.
"I didn't look, but were there knives missing then?" Amaya said.
She sighed. "I didn't see. It wasn't a matter to concern myself with."
"Man, that's not helping your case."
"Let's leave it for now," said Umeko. "What about the sword?"
Ryousei stuck his hand up and bounced on the balls of his feet. "Oh! Right before Shitori-san realised that her sword was gone, someone pranked me with a bucket of water on a door - she ran out of her room to see what happened, so the thief might've caught her door before it closed and taken the sword from there."
Komi slowly nodded in understanding. "Because they knew that you would go running if you thought someone was in danger. It was a flawed plan that relied on chance, but it actually worked."
"Right, where was everyone during that?" Naoki inquired. "Yesterday, just before lunch, I think.."
Naoki, Amaya, Takehiko and Shigeko were alone at that point, the latter two claiming that they were asleep and didn't hear the commotion. Takehiko had apparently been in the infirmary looking for cold medicine.
"So no one can back up Kusuhara-kun and Yamamoto-chan?" Etsuko concluded.
"Nope, you got me," replied the discus thrower.
Misaki leant over her stand. "Firstly, Shitori-san could be lying to take suspicion off her - maybe she never lost the sword. And secondly, who backed up Mitsukuri-san?"
"I...I did," replied Hitomi. "I caught a cold...from often being in the greenhouse at night...to look at stars."
Takehiko opened his mouth to say something, but instead opted to give the astrologer a sharp look.
"I...think I infected him," she added.
The makeup artist looked between the two skeptically. "Okay, but I don't trust this. I think they're in cahoots," she addressed the rest of the group.
"Still," began Seishiro, "it doesn't mean much now, since the only two missing both alibis are Shitori-san and Yamamoto-san."
"I swear it wasn't me," blurted out Amaya defensively. "I mean, I do not have the foresight to plan something like this."
"And killing someone - even if it's to get out of this hellhole - is way below me," added Shigeko.
Komi shook her head. "We can't believe them. Everything could've been a lie."
"Seriously?" Yuji groaned. "Can't we just trust people? Aren't we friends?"
"Not in this environment. Not in a trial room," replied the cheerleader bluntly.
"Well, we've narrowed it down to two suspects," interjected Ryousei. "Isn't that enough?"
Seishiro suddenly came to a gut-sinking realisation. "Guys, Yuji-kun and the others left the cafeteria half an hour before it closed up. That left the culprit half an hour to get in and steal the knife, meaning that it could be any of the four without alibis for the theft of the sword."
The sailor nodded. "But it still means that we have four suspects, unless two people were working together."
"One step forwards, two steps back," remarked Katsumi in dismay. "We have other things to go through, right? Maybe that'll help?"
"Such as how the culprit ambushed Toshimi," suggested Etsuko.
Seishiro agreed. "Right. So far I can only think of two possibilities. Either they entered the greenhouse after him and snuck up to him, or they were hiding in the greenhouse beforehand."
"Yes, yes," agreed Katsuo, "but what if he was killed somewhere else and moved?"
Umeko immediately shot down his claim. "There were no signs of the body being moved, not to mention the fact that the killer did not have nearly enough time to clean up any signs of that."
"Wait," called Seishiro. "Back to my other point, the greenhouse door is locked. Only Toshimi, had the key, meaning that the killer had to have come in after him!"
"There are flaws...in that," began Hitomi. "Have you heard...the greenhouse door?"
He nodded slowly. "Wait, so you mean...it creaks loudly when you open it, right?"
"Correct," replied the blonde astrologer.
"So what you're saying is that, since the door creaks so loudly, it'd be impossible for the culprit to come in without nearby noticing." Naoki deduced.
"And what if Toshimi knew they were there, but they hid the weapons from him and struck when his back was turned?" Komi countered.
At some point, Ryousei had passed Keiji the sword, which he now held out. "How would you hide this on your person inconspicuously?" the yogi questioned.
"Vertically behind your back," suggested Yuji.
"Inconspicuously," repeated Keiji with emphasis. "It's heavy - one would likely have to hold it there with one or both hands, looking very strange."
"And to hide it, you couldn't be seen from the back. But your reflection in the glass of the greenhouse would give that away." Seishiro finished.
Yuji scratched the back of his head. "But that makes both explanations a moot point."
"There were no apparent signs of anyone breaking down the door," said Takehiko flatly.
"No," began Misaki, "no, I have a way. Did anyone else check the top drawer in their desk in their room?"
"Nope," said Amaya.
"I did," replied Seishiro. "There was this toolkit thing that had instructions on how to kill someone."
"And how to disassemble some things," added Yuji.
Misaki gave them a confused look.
"I had a sewing kit," said Etsuko.
"Yes, okay," replied Misaki abruptly. "I think the girls have a sewing kit that comes with instructions as to how to pick a lock with the needle."
Realisation dawned on a good number of the students.
"Every guy who checked his drawer had a toolkit, and every girl has a sewing kit, right?" Naoki surveyed. The answers were affirmative.
Seishiro nodded. "That means we can take Mitsukuri-san and Kusuhara-san off the list of four suspects."
"Leaving these two lovely ladies here -" proclaimed Katsuo dramatically "- Shitori Amaya and Yamamoto Shigeko!"
"May we not derive humour of this?" Umeko asked, steely.
Shigeko looked around nervously, Amaya bit her lip.
"Hold on," said Etsuko. "What if one of the girls lent her sewing kit to a guy? Did anyone do that?"
Nobody made a sound.
"I assume not?"
"No, nobody did," said Komi.
"Nope, not me," added Etsuko.
Umeko nodded. "Clearly. Neither have I. If anyone is withholding information from personal embarrassment, please take into account the fact that we will all die if you don't speak up."
Another bout of silence passed.
"Well, that was a nice but pointless speech," muttered Naoki.
Out of the blue, Misaki yelled: "I know who the culprit is!"
"What?" Seishiro gasped.
"Listen. After they found Shitori-chan's sword, we both figured she was pretty suspicious, so she let me search her room." Amaya nodded.
"I didn't realise it was important at the time, but when I went through her drawers, her sewing kit still had the plastic packaging over it. It had never been opened. Therefore, I have reason to believe that you, Yamamoto-san, are the culprit!" Misaki pointed a finger at the food critic.
A panicked look grew on Shigeko's face. "Wh-what? Do you really think that I, of such a high class, would really stoop to violence like a common street thug?!"
"This situation is enough to drive anyone to the brink of insanity, so yes, I believe so," replied Umeko calmly.
"Yeah? Well the evidence points to Shitori-san as much as it points to me! What's wrong with me j-just being in the wrong place at the wrong time? I'm telling you it was her!"
Keiji brought his fist to his palm. "Yamamoto-san, please calm down."
"We already established that she's innocent," called Seishiro.
"It wasn't me!" Shigeko's long pink pigtails whipped about her as she turned to glare at him. "How could a weak and delicate damsel like myself kill Toshimi, of all people?!"
"That's why you had to rely on ambushing him," Seishiro rebutted. "Something that Shitori-san didn't need to do, because of her talent."
Komi nodded. "Now it's obvious, don't you think? All we need is a little pressure, and this 'delicate damsel' will break."
"How dare you!" Shigeko screeched. "It was definitely her! No one would bat an eyelid at Shitori-san carrying her own sword!"
Amaya gripped the edge of her stand. "But I wouldn't have a reason to wake up early and come into the greenhouse, holding the sword that I just 'lost'!"
Shigeko gave an indignant cry. "Listen-"
"Well well, it's all very amusing, watching you lead each other in circles," began Katsuo. "But I have a contradiction for you all. Every piece of evidence condemning Yamamoto-san could easily be bypassed by Shitori-san's talent."
"What are you talking about?" Etsuko whispered.
The playwright spread his hands with a smile, as if happy to be contradicting someone. "Firstly, the sword. Shitori started the drama queen act yesterday in a futile attempt to take suspicion off her. This morning, she entered the greenhouse holding her sword, which had still been in her room the whole time."
Amaya shook her head. "That's...that's wrong, how could I do that, why would I do that?"
Katsuo smirked. "Only the culprit would say that. After all, if anyone questioned why Shitori had the sword, she'd just say that she found it on the way to breakfast. She would have a reason to carry it, after all. While Yamamoto would need to rely on picking the lock beforehand and ambushing the victim, Shitori would not. Being the Super High School Level Capoeirista, she has the skill to overpower him."
"And with the ability to have held the sword without drawing suspicion...it would have made a potential attack a surprise nevertheless," commented Umeko.
"That means that both of them have an equal chance of being the culprit," Ryousei concluded fearfully.
Seishiro sighed, realising that they had been pushed back again. "I wouldn't put it in terms of chance. But there has to be some way to prove one guilty or the other innocent. There has to."
Naoki snorted. "Well, I don't know about you, but Yamamoto-san sounds pretty guilty at the moment," he said, jerking a thumb at the food critic.
"That could be true, but mannerisms alone aren't incriminating enough at this point in time," Komi pointed out. "No one knows each other through and through - this might be just how somebody reacts under pressure."
"We're stuck," gasped Katsumi, the weight of the trial dawning on her.
"Think...about it," prompted Hitomi. "...the evidence."
The evidence. What couldn't be bypassed by someone's talent or circumstance? What didn't he mention?
"The fabric," Seishiro realised. "Oshima-san, you didn't mention the fabric."
Katsuo raised an eyebrow. "And?" he questioned.
Umeko nodded, agreeing with Seishiro. "As far as my observations show, all of us have clothing of a similar appearance provided in our rooms. I have long black dresses. Watanabe-san and Oshima-san have suits. And Yamamoto-san, you tend to wear white and pale pink dresses. Nishimura-san, pass me the fabric you found."
"S-so what? Monokuma probably makes all of these clothes out of the same crap! And don't Hideaki-san, Kusuhara-san, and Toru-chan all wear white? You can't prove that Shitori-san doesn't have something white in her closet!" Shigeko yelled preemptively.
"We happen to wear white of a different material," said Misaki icily, pulling at the sleeves of her fluffy cardigan.
Umeko pressed the piece of fabric between her fingers. "It does have the appearance and texture of silk, although I could be mistaken."
"And how can you prove that it came off the culprit anyway?!" Shigeko attacked. "For all we know, it might've just fallen off whoever set up this whole murder school crap!"
Seishiro shook his head. "That's impossible. I mentioned that when I found it, it was impaled on a piece of clay. There's no way it could've been there before."
"But just because Shigeko-chan has white silk clothing, it doesn't condemn her," muttered Yuji. "Again, we can't prove that Amaya-chan doesn't have something that the scrap could've ripped off from."
"Oh, so we're on first-name basis now?" Shigeko muttered.
"Hey, I do that with everyone!"
"Let's not get distracted," called Amaya.
Shigeko groaned. "Says you-"
"It is worrying," began Keiji, "that we can't pinpoint or prove anything."
Misaki sucked in a breath. "Yes, yes we can. I can."
"S-seriously?" Ryousei gasped. "Wait, because you were the one investigating Shitori-san's room!"
The makeup artist nodded. "I looked through every bit of her room, since she was a suspect at that time. I can confirm that the only white article of clothing in her closet was made of denim or something similar."
"This most certainly is not denim," asserted Umeko, still holding the fabric.
"And there was nowhere else she could have hidden something?" Komi questioned. "Not even somewhere else in the school?"
Misaki shook her head. "I searched through and through. Even had to dig through her trash."
"Speaking of that," mentioned Naoki, "I'm pretty sure Yuji-kun went through every bin he saw," he chuckled.
The blue-haired barista flushed. "Hey!"
"But you didn't find anything?" Ryousei asked.
"No," he replied. "And we split up and searched pretty effectively, so I don't think we missed much."
"Wait wait wait, hold up!" Katsumi exclaimed. "What if those two-" she pointed at Misaki and Amaya "-were working together as each other's alibis?"
"Oh, I can prove that wrong," affirmed Etsuko. "Me and Ichisada-chan. I mean, we were walking past and saw Toru-chan pretty much tearing up the floorboards in there."
Hitomi nodded. "It was...honest. I watched."
Seishiro looked over the scene, tense. "So that means that we've proved one of our two suspects innocent. Or at least, we have enough to make an educated guess."
Etsuko banged her fist on her stand. "He's right. I hate to be the one to say this, but all the evidence points to you, Yamamoto-chan." She counted off a list on her fingers. "You wear white clothing. You were in the kitchen late last night. You were alone when Shitori-san's sword was stolen. You have a sewing kit to pick the lock with. And you showed up to breakfast having taken a shower - something that hasn't happened before!"
Seishiro nodded, throat dry. "Alright. I'm going to go through what we figured out about the murder. And...speak up if you think I'm wrong, okay?"
"You are wrong!" Shigeko shrieked frantically. "I didn't do it! I didn't!"
"Ignore her, stated Umeko.
Seishiro nodded. "So yesterday, the culprit set up a distraction to get Shitori out of her room. They then entered her room and took her sword, presumably hiding it in their own room. Last night, the culprit, being the last person in the kitchen, also took a kitchen knife and stored that as well, in preparation."
Shigeko covered the bottom half of her face with her hand, taking sharp and anxious breaths.
"They were aware of Toshimi's routine of being alone, so they decided to target him," continued Seishiro. "This morning, they woke up earlier than the morning announcement, and used the needle from their sewing kit to pick the greenhouse lock, since Toshimi had the key on his person at that time. The culprit had the two weapons on them as they lay in waiting. They then ambushed him by, uh..."
He faltered a little, and Umeko took over his sentence. "The culprit likely approached from behind and made the first strike from there. At that point, they may have continued from their original swing or made another strike that missed - shattering nearby flowerpots and catching some of their clothing on a broken shard. That gave the victim enough time to turn around, but not enough to fight back. That was when the culprit stabbed him twice in the chest, either of which could've been the killing blow. They then used the chef's knife to cut into the corpse underneath the clothing, leaving it there as a red herring." The mauve-haired mortician nodded, as if satisfied with her part.
"Oh! Okay!" Ryousei spoke up earnestly despite the somber mood setting in. "Then the culprit ran out of the room and hid the real murder weapon in a storage room! They were in a hurry, so it was kind of just thrown in there..."
Etsuko joined in, seemingly eager to be part of it. "After that, they went back to their room to clean themselves off, and then showed up to breakfast to join the rest of us. And...that's what led us here," she finished.
We're like pieces of a puzzle, all working to piece together the full picture. Like clockwork. Morbid clockwork.
"All this evidence points to one person. Yamamoto Shigeko...are we correct?" Seishiro pointed at the pink-haired girl.
There were tears welling up in her eyes. "No! You're wrong! You're wrong!"
"Oh?" Takehiko cocked his head. "If you have something to prove it, then by all means, speak up."
Shigeko looked dumbfounded. "No...I...I don't have anything. B-but you're wrong! You're all wrong! You are!" She pointed frantically at various people in the room, as if trying to take attention away from her.
"Upupupupu!" Monokuma, having been silently observing since the start of the trial, got up from his perch on the stand. "Come on! I'm sick of watching the blind lead the blind, but at least you've gotten somewhere. Unfortunately, this trial's gonna have to come to a close. Are you ready, kiddos?" The bear struck a pose, and a drumroll began in the background. "It's...Voting Time!"
At once, everyone's stands opened up to reveal a screen embedded in the front. On the screen sat the same pixelated figures that adorned the dorm room doors.
"All ya gotta do is select the one who ya think is the culprit and lock it in! So simple, even you dimwits could do it! Remember, majority rules." Monokuma cackled from his stand.
Seishiro's hand hovered over the panel, having selected Shigeko to vote for.
Here...somebody will always die. And it's us or her.
He hit the 'Confirm' button, looking up to see the others doing the same. When it seemed that the last vote had been cast, the lights suddenly dimmed.
In silence, three spotlights turned on in the centre of the circle of stands. They circled randomly across the group of students - Seishiro found himself flinching whenever the harsh light passed over him.
One by one, they came to a stop at a single stand. Shigeko looked up, the lights accentuating the glistening tears rolling down her face.
Another spotlight suddenly illuminated over Monokuma. "Correctamundo! Dear little Shigeko-chan is the blackened! Guilty! Guilty!" He crowed. "Now, got any last words? I can assure you they won't be famous, upupupu!"
"Please," she whispered. "Just stop it. Stop it! Stop it!" Each word increased in volume until she was shouting and crying, voice cracking.
"It...it was you," gasped Katsumi in the darkness.
"It was you!" Misaki shouted angrily. "Why would you- you traitor- why would you betray us?!"
Seishiro fixed her with a stare. "Why?"
Shigeko brought her cupped hands to cover her nose and mouth, as if trying to suppress her inelegant whimpers. "It...the video..."
"The motive video?" Seishiro pressed.
"Yes," she replied, an audible tremble in her voice. "It was...it was Mommy and Daddy. They were being stabbed, and- and there was so much blood, and...I- I don't know what I can do without them! They can't be dead. They can't!"
Seishiro made eye contact with Etsuko from across the circle of stands. A horrified look was growing on her face, the aftermath of the trial setting in.
"That's why I killed, I chose the one person who would be alone...b-because I have to get out! I don't have any more reason to live without them. A-at that point in time, their lives were more important than any of yours! They still are!" She was breaking down, crying and yelling like a madwoman.
"How impeccably selfish," muttered Katsuo. "Selfish and immature."
"S-shut up!" Shigeko shrieked in reply.
"Don't add insult to injury," said Keiji firmly.
Seishiro read the expressions of the people around him. Katsumi sniffled a little, while Naoki watched tensely with eyes wide.
"You would do that," said Amaya, dismayed. "I...I don't believe this."
Umeko watched Shigeko emotionlessly. "Yamamoto-san...I apologise, but this is all over now."
"No! Please, it isn't!" She gripped the front of her stand, trembling. "Please...just let me live. I need to get out- just, please! Anyone! This...this isn't happening..." Shigeko hung her head, fringe and pigtails dangling loosely. She hiccuped lightly, tears dripping onto the polished mahogany.
"Oh, boo hoo," mocked Monokuma. "I'm tired of this whole drama queen act! But to feel that despair sinking in...how does it feel, knowing that you'll die without ever knowing any answers?"
Shigeko let her tears flow freely now, wailing and screaming with every last bit of essence she had. It was pitiful.
But no one could save her now.
"Upupupu! Welcome to my favourite part!" Out of Monokuma's stand popped a large red button, almost cartoony in its shape. He pulled out a wooden mallet and smashed it down on the button, smiling gleefully. "It's Execution Time, kiddies!"
Yamamoto Shigeko, the Super High School Level Food Critic, has been found guilty of murder.
Commence execution.
Shigeko shrieks as a chain wraps around her neck and drags her backwards through a set of fancy double doors. She is strapped to a large velvet chair at the end of a long, golden table.
Execution: Feeding Time!
Silhouettes of Shigeko's parents appear in the distance, cooking. She brightens, hopeful. They hand a plate of steaming hot food to Monokuma, who runs down the length of the table and comes to a stop in front of her. The steam rising from the plate forms a skull and crossbones. She looks around fearfully, biting her lip and sweating. She screams as more silhouettes appear beside her and force her mouth open as Monokuma shovels the boiling, poisoned food down her throat.
Shigeko convulses violently, tears and sweat streaming down her reddening face as the heat and poison burns her throat. Muffled, desperate screams echo through the room, her voice cracking and gurgling. She finally slumps forward, eyes rolled back, even her sclera red, the last thing she sees being her parents' figures watching emotionlessly.
