"Which of them is it?"
"I don't know!"
"It must be Byakuya!"
"It must be Touko!"
"Look at their faces! They know they're guilty!"
The chaos continued to ensue, and Makoto was beginning to panic. They were wasting precious time here. While there was every chance that either Touko or Byakuya were, indeed, the so-called 'blackened' responsible for the murders, there was every chance that they weren't, either.
"I'll tell ya what happened," said Mondo. "The pair of 'em lured Leon and Hagakure to the pool, where they strangled 'em to death, and then hid them in the locker. The next day, when we all set out to search, they volunteered to take the pool in order to keep the bodies hidden. That night, they dragged the corpses into the main hallway to be discovered, that way they could start the trial and get their asses set free! There! Solved!"
Mondo might not have been the brightest in the room, but the room seemed to agree with him. In truth, it made sense. Partially. There were definitely elements of truth in there, but was it all really as simple as that?
"Monokuma," the biker yelled, "can we vote for two people at once?"
Monokuma shook his head. "Nope! There's only one blackened in this case. If there were two killers, we'd be holding two separate trials. Sorry, folks! You're gonna have to choose someone!"
"I choose Byakuya," said Celeste suddenly, tone so calm that it was easy to forget she was sentencing someone to death.
"So do I," said Mondo. "Byakuya it is. Only he could take both of those guys down. Just look at the smirk on his face – he knows we're right!"
"I hate to say it," said Sayaka, "but I think you might be right. Byakuya makes the most sense."
"I agree," said Asahina. "It must be Byakuya."
"So do I," said Mukuro. Her voice took Makoto by surprise, as he suddenly realised it was the first time she had spoken in the entire trial. "Let's just get this over with."
"You hear that?" Said Mondo. "We're ready to vote, Monokuma. Get Voting Time started so we can get the hell outta here!"
No.
No!
It couldn't end like this! This was a gamble too great to take!
"No! Wait!" Makoto cried out, waving his hands in panic. "Monokuma, don't go into Voting Time yet!"
"What are you talking about?" Celeste hissed. "We've already decided that Byakuya is the culprit. Stop interfering."
"We don't know that for sure," Makoto replied, tone practically pleading with the Ultimate Gambler. "We're going forward based purely on speculation and nothing else. There are still some things that we haven't explained yet that we need to cover!"
Kyoko nodded in agreement. "He's right," she said. "If we vote now, we risk killing ourselves in the process. The vote can't be held until we're certain."
Makoto was relieved to see that someone had some common sense here. While Byakuya continued to smirk and Touko carried on tearing her hair out in clumps, the rest of the room deliberated, muttering and murmuring amongst themselves.
"Alright," said Mondo, who had apparently become the leader of the pro-Voting Time movement, "we'll hold off. What else do we need to talk about?"
Mondo was standing down. There was still some hope for sanity after all.
"Well, first off, the logic doesn't add up," Makoto began. "You said that Byakuya and Fukawa teamed up to kill Leon and Hagakure, hid their bodies, kept them hidden throughout the search by volunteering to take the pool, and then dragging them out for us to find this morning… I think you're almost right, but don't you see the problem there?"
The biker shrugged. He didn't.
Makoto wasn't surprised.
"By taking the pool – the room they knew the bodies were stored in – they were only placing suspicion on themselves," he explained. "If they were the culprits, and they knew the bodies were there, wouldn't it make more sense to let someone else take that room instead? That way the bodies would be found by someone else, and the suspicion wouldn't be on them."
"Now you're the one that isn't making sense," said Celeste. "They hid the bodies to confuse us. You said so yourself. They wanted to hide the true date of death. They took that room to keep them hidden, just like Mondo said. It was all part of the plan."
"No," Makoto countered. "That doesn't add up. If they wanted to keep the bodies hidden to obscure the date of death, wouldn't they have kept them hidden for longer? Why drag them out after only one night had passed? By taking the pool, and then dragging the bodies out so soon, they were only putting guilt on themselves and ruining their own plan. That doesn't make sense."
Asahina scratched her head. "So what do you think happened, then? They had to have been involved somehow – you said so yourself."
"I think," said Makoto, "that neither one of them is the killer."
"Wh-what?" Sayaka looked stunned.
"Neither of them are the blackened," said Makoto. "I can prove it, too."
Was that a faint smile on Kyoko's face?
That was all the assurance he needed.
"Monokuma," said Makoto, turning to the teddy bear. "Remind me – how many people does it take to trigger a body discovery announcement?"
"Three!" The bear chimed. "Once three innocents discover a body, the announcement is made. The blackened doesn't count toward that total, though."
"Just as I thought," said Makoto. "I was, as far as we knew, the first to discover the bodies when I walked into the hallway earlier. Yet the moment I found them, the body discovery announcement was triggered. If I was the first, it shouldn't have gone off."
"Weren't Mondo and Kiyotaka right behind you when you found the bodies, though?" Sayaka was clearly still confused. "They would have made up the other two, right?."
"We were behind him, yes," said Kiyotaka, "but we were quite a distance away. We were barely halfway up the stairwell when Makoto started screaming from upstairs and the announcement went off. We didn't see the bodies until after the announcement."
Mondo nodded his head, voicing his agreement to that.
For a moment, Makoto had worried he had miscalculated everyone's movements, but hearing the biker and the prefect agree gave him some hope. He was definitely on the right track. He had thought it through correctly.
"See? They didn't count towards the total," he said. "Yet if I, the first, triggered the announcement..."
"That means that two people discovered the bodies before you," said Sakura.
"Exactly. I was the first one upstairs, so no-one else that morning could have found them before me. There were only two other people who had the opportunity to find them, and we already know who they are. If they counted towards the total, then it's impossible for either of them to be the culprit. Byakuya and Fukawa are innocent!"
Silence fell over the room.
No one said a word.
The easy way out of the trial had just been shattered in front of them. Byakuya and Fukawa might have been easy scapegoats, and their role in the killing might still have been a mystery, but they weren't killers.
Of that Makoto was certain.
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
Byakuya had unfolded his arms, and had given the Ultimate Lucky Student a sarcastic round of slow applause.
"Congratulations," he said. "You're correct."
Touko, on the other hand, still looked beyond stressed. Though, Makoto supposed, didn't she always?
"Touko and I found the bodies during the search yesterday," Byakuya confessed, "but we had no role in the killings."
"You found the bodies," said Mondo, "and you didn't tell us? You didn't fuckin' tell us?!"
"That is the layman's way of saying it, yes," said Byakuya.
"W-Why?" Chihiro murmured. "Why didn't you tell us?"
"Why?" Byakuya scoffed. "I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to. But if you insist on the truth, then I'll give you it. It's of no use to me now. It's become boring to hold onto. Yes, Touko and I found the bodies. Touko saw blood and fainted, revealing some… interesting traits about her personality, but I digress. I told her to keep quiet about it, and we both decided to keep the bodies hidden. Last night, I returned to the pool and brought the bodies out into the hallway to be discovered today."
"Why would you do something like that?" Sakura asked.
Byakuya sighed. "Yet another 'why'. If I hear the word again, I think I'll faint from the boredom. I did it because it made things much more fun," he said, spoken so casually that it turned Makoto's stomach. "Had I made a scene and reported the bodies the moment I found them, what entertainment would that have brought me? What value would that have added to the game? By moving the bodies and manipulating things as I saw fit, it confused both the killers and the participants. The game was better as a result."
His monologue finally came to an end, but Makoto hadn't bothered to listen to much of it. His disgust was too strong to bear the explanation; a sentiment the rest of the room seemed to share.
"A game?" Mondo stared him down. "You call this a fuckin' game? Two people are dead, and that's entertainment to you, you sick bas-"
"Judge me however you wish," Byakuya replied, not allowing Mondo to finish his sentence, "but I am not the guilty party here. Neither is Fukawa. The longer we discuss this, the more time we're wasting, and the more you bore me."
"Bore you?" Mondo's patience had snapped. "How about I bore into your goddamn skull the moment we get outta this trial, huh?"
"I won't let you touch him!" Touko screeched.
Monokuma was quick to laugh.
"Wa-hahahaha! That's the spirit! You could all learn a thing or two from Mondo here! An exemplary student indeed!"
Mondo opened his mouth to respond, just as Touko opened hers, only for Kyoko to speak first.
"Stop this," she said, voice quiet and yet so incredibly commanding. "We don't have time for this. Sort this out later. For now, we need to get back to solving this."
"I agree," said Sayaka. "If neither of them are guilty, then we have to figure out who else it could be… even if that puts us back at square one."
Were they really at square one, Makoto wondered?
No. That wasn't true.
They were more close to solving this than they had been so far. There was still something else to discuss, after all.
"We can start figuring it out," he began, "by thinking back to what happened to Leon on the morning he died."
"Oh," said Asahina, "that's right. He fell ill at breakfast after eating the cereal he made and ran out of the room. That was the last time I saw him alive… do you think that has something to do with this?"
Makoto nodded. "I think it could be the key to solving the case."
"I don't understand," said Chihiro. "How can someone get so ill from eating something as simple as cereal? I had some from the same box and I was fine."
"Someone might have poisoned his bowl," said Kyoko, seemingly reading Makoto's mind. "If they only poisoned his specific bowl, only he would have fallen ill, since he was the only one who ate from it."
"Exactly," said Makoto. "If his bowl was poisoned, it had to have been poisoned that morning, too. Meaning whoever did it must have been someone who was in the room either just before him or at the same time that he was there."
Glances were exchanged between a few of the other students.
"I was the first to show up to breakfast," said Asahina." "N-Not that I had anything to do with it! Mukuro and Chihiro came in after me. Leon showed up just after that. He ran out of the room to throw up just as you arrived, Makoto."
"That means that one of those three did it, right?" Said Sayaka, who glanced over at all three of them with immense suspicion. There was no guarantee of it, but Makoto was sure she was right. "Wait… what was the point in poisoning Leon if they were only going to strangle him later that night?"
"I'm not sure," Makoto replied. "That's what I don't understand."
"What could they have used?" Celeste asked. "There aren't any poisons accessible anywhere in the school – I've looked. There's nothing anyone could have used."
She looked? That was strange, thought Makoto, but he pushed it from his head. Although… wait.
He blinked.
He suddenly remembered something, and he turned to the Ultimate Gambler again.
"Celeste," he said, "you mentioned something yesterday morning at breakfast. Just before we all realised Hagakure was missing and launched our search. You said you wanted a chicken dish for breakfast, didn't you?"
She seemed confused by the question.
"Yes, I did," she replied, "but there wasn't any chicken available. There had been a frozen one waiting a couple of days before, but it was gone yesterday morning. What does that have to do with – Ah!"
It looked like she understood.
"There weren't any poisons available," said Makoto, "so our killer had to improvise. Before Leon arrived, they most likely took the raw chicken and used its juices to taint one of the cereal bowls. After that, they disposed of it to erase any evidence. I'm not even sure if Leon – or anyone in particular – was the intended target. He just choose the wrong bowl, ate from it, and got ill as a result."
It was all starting to make sense.
"Now that you mention it," said Asahina, "I'm pretty sure he mentioned something about it tasting weird. I thought it was strange, since Chihiro said hers tasted fine."
Chihiro nodded her head in agreement. "That's right. Mine tasted really nice, actually, but Leon said his was giving him a sore stomach. He kept on eating, though… even though I suggested he should stop."
That proved it, then. Leon was definitely poisoned, and the chicken might well have been the cause of it.
"That still doesn't explain why he was poisoned," said Kiyotaka. "They had no reason to poison him if they were just going to strangle him later. That still doesn't make sense."
"Actually, it does," said Kyoko. "You just have to think outside the box."
Wait, really?
Makoto watched her with surprise, currently just as confused as the rest of the room.
"The killer was trying to delay the bodies being found," she said, to the frustration of the room.
"We've already been over that," said Mondo. "That's obvious!"
"I wasn't finished," Kyoko replied swiftly. "The killer poisoned Leon to give his disappearance an explanation. Think about it. If he didn't turn up the next day, everyone would have assumed he was likely to still be in his room, suffering from the affects of his sickness. If so, no one would have thought to look for him. The fact the killer made use of food poisoning – which is usually non-lethal – only makes it that much clearer."
Suddenly Makoto understood. Of course.
Of course!
"If no one looked for him and they assumed he was alive in his room instead of dead and hidden in the locker," said Makoto, "then it would have made it easier for the killer to confuse the date of the death, right?"
"Exactly," Kyoko replied. "By giving a reason for his disappearance, the killer would have bought themselves more time before the body was discovered. When Leon would eventually be found, everyone would assume he had died the night before – just as we did earlier – when he might have been dead for days. That confusion would have made it impossible to figure out who the killer was."
It was the only explanation that made any sense. For a moment, Makoto was chilled by the cleverness and callousness of the killer. Until, of course, his thought was interrupted.
"Why," asked Sakura, "wasn't Hagakure poisoned, then? He was fine all through breakfast."
"Hagakure wasn't the intended target," said Makoto. "Leon was poisoned because he ate from the poisoned bowl, which was done in order to set the killer's trap. Leon had the killer's blood on him because he brought his screwdriver, fearing an attack, and used it in self-defence. Neither of those criteria fit Hagakure. I think Hagakure walked in on the killing, and was killed as a result. His murder wasn't planned."
"So what you're saying is," said Chihiro, "Hagakure wasn't meant to die?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying," said Makoto. "The killer took down Leon, and then killed Hagakure to stop him from raising the alarm. They were stuck with trying to hide two bodies instead of the originally planned one. They shoved both of them into the locker, hoping they wouldn't be found, but their plan had already been ruined by his appearance. At that point, they most likely left the scene."
It was all coming together now. Piece by piece, he was getting closer to solving this.
"Why did the killer hide them in the locker?" Mondo asked. "If this happened during the night, no one would be around. They could've just hid them somewhere else."
Makoto shook his head. "No, they couldn't have. First off, Hagakure had already walked in. If they dragged two bodies into another room, there was a risk of being caught. It would have taken too much time. Besides, where else on the second floor could you hide two bodies? The locker was the closest, and most logical place."
"There's something else, too," said Kyoko. "We've already decided that the killer had to be at breakfast early that morning, leaving us with three girls. Adding to that, both victims were male. Would it really be possible for a girl to take male bodies out of the pool?"
Sakura didn't look too pleased about that. "Are you trying to say that girls aren't strong enough to carry males?"
Kyoko shook her head. "No, not at all. I'm saying that they might not have thought it was possible. Something may have limited them… like the changing rooms. Don't forget, the male and female changing rooms separate the pool from the hallway. We know that males cannot enter the female changing room and vice-versa. Perhaps the killer was afraid of carrying male bodies into the female changing room, worrying it might break a rule. Likewise, they didn't want to risk going through the male changing room, either, since it would also break a rule."
"So what are you saying?"
"I'm saying that only a male could have carried the bodies through the changing rooms without breaking a rule and being shot at by the gun fixed on the wall. A female wouldn't have taken the risk – she couldn't. The bodies were left in the pool, which means that the killer might have been limited in where they could move them. Which can only mean that the killer was definitely female," Kyoko concluded. "This helps to prove it."
While Makoto wasn't sure that the killer had any need to move the bodies from the pool at all, the theory made sense. Adding to that the fact that the only people in the dining room before Leon had arrived had been girls, and the answer was clear.
The killer was definitely a girl.
"So who was it, then?" Said Sayaka. "Who did this?"
"It had to be someone capable of overpowering Leon and Hagakure in relatively short time," said Kyoko. "They had to have the strength to strangle them with their bare hands, which might require significant combat skill. It had to be a girl. It also had to be someone who was present in the dining hall when Leon was poisoned, too."
Wait.
She was right.
Chihiro, Asahina and Mukuro had all been in the dining room at the time of Leon's poisoning.
Chihiro was far too dainty to be capable of all of that, thought Makoto.
Asahina was stronger, yes, but he couldn't imagine her being capable of doing it, either. She was a swimmer, not a soldier.
A soldier.
But that meant…
"You know who it is," said Kyoko, staring him down, "don't you, Makoto?"
He did.
It was insane, but he did.
He could barely believe it.
Yet it was the only conclusion left.
Makoto turned to the culprit.
"Mukuro," he said. "It was you, wasn't it?"
The pallid face of Mukuro Ikusaba, the Ultimate Soldier, was tired. Still drained from the death of her sister. The life simply faded from her eyes. It was painful to have to do this to her, especially after she had experienced such a tragedy only a few days before… but he had to deliver the truth.
"No," she replied, expression remaining bland at first. Until, gradually, it began to grow in horror and offense as her barriers flew up to defend her. "No! Not at all! I would never! I couldn't!"
"Are you serious, Makoto?" Said Asahina, stunned. "She couldn't have! Right?"
Kiyotaka watched on, pain evident in his eyes. "Makoto… are you sure about this? She just lost her sister. She doesn't need-"
"Think about it," said Makoto, knowing that if he didn't stop the questions now that he would quickly lose control again, just as he had earlier. "Think back to the morning after the murder, when we were all at breakfast. Mukuro was falling asleep at the table, remember? She was exhausted. I thought it was down to her grief, but was that really the case?"
"What are you saying?" The prefect asked.
"I'm saying that if she had been attacked by Leon's screwdriver the night before, she wouldn't have been able to wash her wound. The showers are turned off at night, remember? She couldn't have used the pool either, or else she would have been soaked. She had to return to her room, still wounded and bleeding, and wait for morning to shower. When morning came, the shower came back on, and she cleaned the wound. She knew that, despite being up all night, people would have been suspicious if she didn't turn up to breakfast. So she appeared, despite almost falling asleep at the table because she hadn't slept at all!"
Mondo shook his head. "This is fuckin' crazy!"
Makoto hit back without hesitation. "It's the only thing that makes sense, Mondo! Mukuro could easily strangle someone – she's a soldier. Mukuro was one of the only people who had the means to poison Leon. Mukuro was the only one exhausted the morning after the murder – everyone else was wide awake, when we know that the killer would have stayed up all night. Mukuro is a girl, just like we know the killer is. The killer can only be one person, and that's Mukuro!"
The accused didn't react at first. She was silent, eyes bulging, face pale, hinging on every word that left Makoto's mouth.
"Wrong," she whispered.
Makoto didn't reply. He continued to watch her. He had nothing more to say. He already knew he was right.
"Wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG!"
She repeated the word over and over again, practically turning it into a mantra, before she finally broke free from it.
Everyone watched her in shock. She had spent the last few days in perfect silence, still reeling from Junko's death, overcome with the agony and the despair of her grief. The contrast between the defeated girl they had known a few days ago and the increasingly angry, increasingly desperate beast they saw now… it was mind-blowing.
"Wrong! There's no proof that I did it. You've jumped to conclusions. There's nothing concrete against me! If you vote for me, we'll all die! We'll all die! WE'LL ALL DIE!"
"You're right," said Makoto. "There isn't anything concrete against you, but that was exactly your plan. There wasn't supposed to be any proof. That was why you poisoned Leon and planned on hiding the body – to confuse everyone and make it impossible to trace it back to you. Logic is all we've had to work with here, and logic was what led us to this conclusion. Admit it, Mukuro! It couldn't have been anyone else!"
"Wrong," she said again. "Wrong! WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!"
"Makoto," said Kyoko. "I think it's time to end this."
Makoto nodded.
The rest of the room, apart from the wheezing, manic figure of Mukuro, seemed to agree.
It was time for one last argument.
A closing argument.
CLOSING ARGUMENT
"Two days ago, just before breakfast, the culprit decided to begin their plan. Using a raw frozen chicken they found in the kitchen, the culprit squeezed some of the juices into one of the available cereal bowls in order to poison whoever ate from it, before disposing of the chicken afterwards. The poisoning was to make sure that, when the victim disappeared, it would take longer for anyone to think it was strange, thereby making it easier to hide the date of the killing and get away with the crime.
Later, Leon arrived, with only he, Chihiro, Asahina and the culprit in the room. Leon took the bowl, not knowing it had been poisoned, and ate from it. Quickly, he fell ill with food poisoning, causing him to run out of the hall and back to his room, passing by me in the process. He didn't leave his room for the rest of the day.
Later that night, Leon was summoned to the pool by the culprit. This was most likely because the pool, unlike any other rooms, didn't have a way for him to defend himself, but still had many ways to kill him, such as drowning, should strangulation have failed. However, Leon suspected that it might have been a trap, and so he brought the screwdriver from his toolkit with him as a backup, just in case he had to defend himself. Once he arrived at the pool, the culprit attacked, attempting to strangle him. A struggle ensued, during which Leon stabbed his assailant with the screwdriver, causing them to bleed. Some of their blood fell onto the lapel of Leon's jacket. The struggle intensified, during which the screwdriver was knocked out of his grasp, ultimately landing in the water, where it sank to the bottom of the pool. Defenceless and weakened from the food poisoning, the culprit easily finished him off.
However, just as they killed Leon and were preparing to hide his body in the locker at the back of the room, Hagakure, most likely having been out in the halls and having noticed that something strange was happening, entered the room. He saw the killing, but the culprit was quick to strangle and kill him before he could escape and raise the alarm. The culprit stashed both bodies into the locker to hide them, during which blood from Leon's lapel rubbed against the inside.
Still bleeding from their injury, the culprit left the scene of the crime and returned to their room, forced to leave the screwdriver at the bottom of the pool. However, they realised that they had to clean their wound. Due to the fact that the showers don't work at night, the culprit was forced to stay awake, waiting for it to turn on. Once morning came, they cleaned their wound, washing off the blood and cleaning themselves up. As a result of getting no sleep, the culprit turned up to breakfast exhausted. Despite almost falling asleep at the table, they knew that not turning up would have only been more suspicious.
While no-one thought it was strange that Leon hadn't appeared at breakfast because he had been ill the day before, Hagakure's absence caused us to worry, considering he had been perfectly healthy.
The culprit had planned on no-one worrying that Leon was missing, but Hagakure, having also been killed the night before, was missing now, too. As a result, we all took notice and launched a search to find them – completely undermining the culprit's plan in the process. The culprit stayed in the dining hall with Sakura while the search took place.
During the search, Byakuya and Fukawa volunteered to search the pool, where they discovered the bodies in the locker. They decided not to tell anyone in order to make things more interesting. Byakuya returned to the pool later that night, dragging the bodies out into the hallway so that they would be discovered the next day. The next morning, as we launched another search, I came across the bodies in the hallway, triggering the body discovery announcement.
Had it not been for Hagakure walking in and ending up a victim, we wouldn't have looked for Leon so early. Had it not been for Byakuya and Fukawa meddling in the culprit's plan, we might not have found the bodies so early, either. Had it not been for Leon's screwdriver, we might never have known the true location of the crime scene. All of these came together to ruin a plan that, had it been perfectly executed, would have made the date of the killing impossible to determine, and therefore the crime impossible to solve."
The argument had ended. The explanation delivered. The room was left stunned.
"With all of these facts in mind," said Makoto, "there's only one person the killer could possibly be!"
He pointed at the guilty party, as the obscure figure of 'the culprit' became clearer.
"The killer," he said, "who murdered Leon Kuwata and Yasuhiro Hagakure… is you, Mukuro Ikusaba!"
COMPLETE!
Voting time came quickly.
Every vote was cast for Mukuro.
Sure enough, they were right.
Mukuro had been the killer, after all.
The screens around them showed bouquets and flashing lights, complete with pouring confetti, just like last time. A means of celebrating a victory that none of them felt good about.
"Why?" Said Asahina. "Why did you do it, Mukuro?"
"Why did I plan on killing someone, you mean?" Mukuro replied, now scarily calm compared to how she had been a moment ago. She seemed to have accepted her defeat. There was no more use in fighting. "Why did I plan on creating a murder that no-one could solve? Isn't it obvious?"
"You wanted to graduate, didn't you?" Said Byakuya, arms folded as usual, watching her with what appeared to be some twisted sense of admiration. As if he was proud at how close she had come to succeeding.
"Graduate? No," she replied, taking half the room by surprise. "No, I didn't want to get out of here. My life isn't worth living without Junko. I did because... I wanted all of you to die."
Makoto felt his stomach and heart sink in unison. She had said it so casually. It sent a chill down his spine.
"Wh-Whaaaaat?!" Kiyoktaka screamed, alongside several others. "What do you mean?!"
"I wanted you all to lose the trial," she replied. "The rules are that if the blackened succeeds in getting away with the crime that everyone but the blackened dies, correct? I planned on having everyone be executed apart from me. Yet before I could graduate… I planned on killing myself, too."
None of this made any sense. She spoke of such bloodshed; all of it just as pointless as the rest. Makoto didn't understand. From the looks of every other face in the room, he wasn't alone in that, either.
"Then what was the point in winning?" Byakuya asked.
"If everyone but me died, only for me to then kill myself afterwards, it would take every player out of the game," she said. "The one responsible for this game – the Mastermind behind all of this… they want this game to continue. The game is what gives them their sick thrill. Whenever someone suffers, Monokuma laughs, and he laughs because he enjoys it. If I was to take every player out of the game, myself included… then the game would end. The Mastermind's enjoyment would be ruined, and all of us would be free from this suffering."
Stunned expressions only grew wider in their shock. From Mondo to Chihiro, from Sakura to Asahina, from Sayaka to Kiyotaka (who, in particular, appeared a mix of outraged and horrified), no one could believe what they were hearing. Only Byakuya and Kyoko seemed to be keeping their calm, albeit for entirely different reasons.
"That's…" Kiyotaka had to pause, having almost forgotten how to breathe. "That's insane. H-How could you think of something so… so horrible?! We don't even know if there is a mastermind! For all we know, that bear is in control of everything on his own!"
"No," said Mukuro, "that's wrong. Someone had to have made the bear, right? Someone has to be in control of him. Someone has to be responsible for all of this. That someone is the Mastermind. I wanted to rob them of their fun and set us all free. I wanted to end this game – the game that took my sister from me. The game that's giving the real killer of Junko and Hifumi so much twisted satisfaction! I was willing to do whatever it takes to stop the game... I'm just sorry that I failed."
A tear slid down the culprit's face, silent.
Monokuma was suddenly up on his feet, standing on top of his chair and glaring down at her.
"You nasty girl!" He hissed. "You awful, devious, cunning, wonderful, incredible, despairing girl! Upupupupu! You planned on turning my own game against me! And to think… you came so close to succeeding… but not close enough, toots! Wa-hahahahaha!"
Makoto hated that bear more than words could say.
"B-But," Chihiro stuttered, "all you had to do was wait. No-one had to die. S-Someone will be coming to rescue us. If we all just stayed calm and-"
"NO ONE IS COMING TO HELP US," Mukuro screamed, that single tear turning into a flood, voice cracking as she roared. Chihiro flinched in fear, but the Ultimate Soldier didn't care. "Don't you understand?! Someone would have come by now!"
"Stop saying that," said Mondo. "It's only been a few days that we've been stuck here! Chihiro's right. All we have to do is wait and-"
"Yes, it's only been a few days," said Mukuro, "but we haven't seen a single sign that anyone is coming. Someone would have noticed that something strange was happening by now. They would have found a way to get through the steel plating on the windows… but they haven't. They're not coming!"
Sayaka shook her head as tears of her own began to fall.
"N-No!" She screamed. "That's not true! Someone is coming! You just have to be… patient… and wait… and we'll be out of here in no time at all!"
Makoto could hear the fear in her voice. The reality was beginning to dawn.
No-one was coming, were they?
"Let's assume they do come," said Mukuro. "Let's assume someone does break in to rescue us. Do you really think the bear and the Mastermind would let us walk out alive? They thrive on despair. They'd sooner kill us all in front of our rescuers' eyes than let us walk free. We either play this game or we die – which was why I decided to flip the tables and beat him at his own game!"
"That's sick," said Kiyotaka, his face pale, hands almost shaking. "That's sick! You're sick! This whole thing is sick!"
"Y'know what else is sick?" Monokuma yawned. "This trial, and not in the good way. I'm gettin' bored over here! Can you wrap your little speech up already, missy? I'll be asleep by the time the punishment rolls around if this lasts any longer."
Mukuro's eyes met those of each of her classmates. For a moment, she observed them in silence, looking between them, one by one.
"All of you. I'm sorry that I failed. I'm sorry that my mission didn't succeed..." As she spoke, another tear made its way down her face. "Yet I need you all to know something. Please, listen. It's the most important thing you're ever going to hear."
What?
What was this about?
"I said there was a mastermind," she continued. "I'm sure I'm right. Someone is controlling this game. I don't know who it is, and I'm not sure I ever will now, but… I know one thing: The mastermind is someone in this room."
Makoto's blood ran cold.
What? Was that really true? No. It was impossible. Surely that made no sense. Was anyone here even remotely capable of planning out a game so twisted? No. Not even Byakuya seemed to be cruel enough for that.
Yet the room erupted into gasps and glances of suspicion, regardless.
"What?!" Mondo gasped. "You can't be serious!"
"I am perfectly serious. Someone in this room is the Mastermind." Mukuro began to look between them all again, speaking to address whichever one of them it might have been. "Whoever you are, Mastermind, I want you to know this: You won't win. You won't beat us. Kill me if you want, but you won't kill what I stood for. You can kill me, but you won't manage to kill us all! One of the people here will beat you; I'm sure of it. When they beat you, they'll find you. When they find you… I hope they kill you!"
In response, Monokuma simply laughed. It kept going, on and on, for what felt like forever, while Mukuro stared him down with tears in her eyes. The rest of the room, some of them joining her in crying, looked like they were about to shatter from the truth she had just delivered.
Just as quickly as it started, however, Monokuma's laughing ceased and he yawned again.
"Alright, alright, time's up," he said. "It's game over for you, princess. Let's get this show on the road, shall we?"
"N-No! Not again!" Sayaka screamed. "I can't watch this again! Someone stop this!"
"Don't let him beat you," said Mukuro, turning to her classmates. "No matter what the bear does to you, or the Mastermind controlling him, don't let it break you. Never give up. Keep on fighting. I know you can win."
"You can't do this to her," said Mondo. "This is sick. Fuckin' sick! Don't execute her!"
"It's okay," said Mukuro. "I accept this."
A smile, faint and distant, spread across her face. It was one mired in sorrow. Yet one filled with a silent optimism – a hope that they would avenge her.
"I'm ready Monokuma," she said, head held high as she turned back to the bear. "Let's get this over with."
This appeared to be the best news Monokuma had heard all week.
"Alright then! Here we go, folks! The moment you've all been waiting for! Iiiiiiiit's… Punishment Time!"
The same red button from last time appeared in front of Monokuma, which he hit with his gavel again, almost shaking in gleeful delight. The monitors in the room lit up with a pixellated sprite of the Ultimate Soldier being dragged off by the bear.
'GAME OVER', the screens read, just like last time, 'MUKURO HAS BEEN FOUND GUILTY. TIME FOR THE PUNISHMENT!'
As the rest of the class cried and panicked, unable to witness the horrors they knew would come, Mukuro continued to be brave.
She stepped forward towards her execution, shoulders rising and falling with each and every deep breath she took.
Makoto's stomach twisted, just as it had last time.
The trial had ended.
The truth had been uncovered.
A new punishment was about to begin.