"Oh how it pains me to have you guys back in the trial room but someone broke the rules so they must pay. I don't need to recap the rules so begin when you're ready." Monokuma said as he sat on his throne overlooking the trial room.
"Where do we even begin? We don't have any suspects." Alyara said with must make logical conclusions here or we will all die." I responded.
"So then let's get started, Kouki's attack has something to do with this murder I'm sure of it." Alyara said.
"Then let's go over both incidents and see where the connections lie. Dawson was killed before Kouki arrived, that much I'm sure." I began.
"You discovered Kouki first then saw Dawson's body, right?" Alyara asked.
"Yeah, I found him lying in a pool of his own blood. His wound is consistent with that of a kitchen knife." I said, struggling not to breakdown at the memory of Kouki lying on the floor looking dead.
"And that's when you noticed Dawson's body, triggering the body discovery announcement." Alyara supplied.
"Kagura counts as one of the body witnesses, it would be logical to assume Kouki is another. But that leaves one other person who saw the body, and they aren't the murderer. Maybe an accomplice." Sayu theorized.
"It might not be an accomplice, it could be that this witness is very close to the killer and doesn't want them to die." Cleo said.
"Shut up, only someone who's a monster would do something like this! And only a coward wouldn't come forward with everything that they know!" Ramos yelled.
"Calm down Ramos, you're letting your personnel feelings get in the way. Any mistake at any point in this trial will get us all killed." I attempted my best at calming Ramos down.
"You don't get to talk to me about being calm, someone in this room killed Dawson and I am going to find out who if it's the last thing I do." Ramos glared around the room, paranoid of everyone.
"Me, of all people should know how it feels to be like you after losing someone you care about. I saw Kouki lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood, for a few minutes he was dead for all I knew. And now he's in a coma, I don't even know if he'll wake up. I want to find out who did it, but I'm not going to throw every ones lives away by making wild accusations. Dawson would not have wanted you to throw your life away." I retaliated.
"I..I..you're right, I just don't know what to do without him." Ramos hung his head, an awkward silence fell over the room.
"For now, let's assume nothing about the missing witness, either through coercion or something else they've refused to step forward. We can come back to it later but right now we need to recap the whole thing." Sayu said.
"After that I just rushed to the Nurse's office, carrying Kouki. I ran into Alyara walking about and I told her to wake Sayu and Cleo, to help with stabilizing Kouki. They came and told me to get out of the office. I waited and some time passed before they emerged from the room and told me Kouki had fallen into a coma. I then went about collecting evidence but I'll save what I found for later." I said.
"We should probably add Alyara to the list of suspects since being up and about at that hour is a bit suspicious." Sayu said.
"I agree." Cleo agreed.
"Fine but I would like to know what happened during Kouki's surgery. We need all information in this case." Alyara responded.
"Unsurprisingly Kouki almost didn't make it, he ad lost a lot of blood and the tools we had on hand were less than adequate." Sayu began.
"Luckily there were some blood packets on hand, we were able to stabilize his condition with those. If they weren't there he wouldn't have survived." Cleo finished.
"Even those were almost not enough, several surgery mistakes almost cost Kouki his life." Sayu stated.
"What does that mean?" I questioned.
"Cleo made several mistakes that could have killed him if I had not noticed would have killed him." Sayu explained.
"I was in an emotional distress and someone had just died, so forgive me for making a few mistakes." Cleo said.
"A few mistakes! Those almost cost Kouki his life." Ramos said, barely keeping his anger in check.
"I'm not proud of what I did and I'll find some way to make up for it." Cleo responded.
"Interesting, well I think we can move on." Sayu said.
"What else is there to talk about, nothing about that conversation gave any hints about who the killer is except make Alyara a suspect. And I don't think she did it, that would be out of her character." Milo finally spoke, though he had his head turned and he was looking at the ground.
"Then let's go over Dawson's body, that might give us a hint to the killer's identity." I suggested.
"Alright, it says here that Dawson was killed with a single stab to the heart." Alyara said.
"Maybe he was drugged, killed and dragged to the spot where his body was at the time of its discovery." Ramos suggested.
"Not likely, the Monokuma File has stated that there were no drugs in his system and my investigation of his body further backed up that." I shot down that statement.
"Okay but he still could have been killed elsewhere." Ramos responded.
"The evidence suggests that he was killed in the storage room. Dawson's clothes were soaked from his own blood, there was a pool of blood beneath him. And there are no drag marks in the blood. All this would suggest that Dawson bled out in the storage room." I said.
"The killer could have moved all that evidence from the original murder site and cleaned up any evidence of their tampering." Cleo responded.
"Not in the amount of time they had. By examining the body I was able to estimate the time of death to be around an hour, give or take a couple of minutes. They had other evidence to dispose of in that time and blood is really hard to clean up. In all likelihood the killer did not move or clean up most of the evidence in the storage room." I explained.
"Wait, what other evidence was destroyed or tampered with?" Cleo asked.
"Earlier a note was placed in front of my door, I saw it and that's what caused me to go the storage room. Later, when I was looking for evidence I found the note burnt. But not completely, which suggests that the killer was interrupted while burning it." I said.
"That could be anyone, I interrupted Cleo and Sayu to help you and Kouki. Not to mention the investigation." Alyara said.
"We're going around in the circles here, I don't know about you guys but I really don't want to find out if there's a time limit." Cleo said.
"Milo has been noticeably quite" Ramos observed.
"Shut up Ramos." Milo responded.
"I didn't want to say anything because I was threatened but if I don't we'll all die. I found Milo disposing of black clothes during the investigation time and he threatened to kill me if I told anyone what I saw, then Ramos comes in looking like he'll beat someone to death and he began to argue with Milo. I tried to get away but they both spotted me and demanded I stay." Cleo revealed.
"Wait, hold on! It's not like that." Milo tried to defend himself.
"Here is the black clothing I found on him." Ramos produced a set of black clothing.
"But why would Milo kill Dawson, he has no motive." Alyara pointed out.
"Are you forgetting Monokuma's motive? He said he would restore lost memories, something could have happened between Dawson and Milo and we wouldn't know about it." Ramos replied.
"Lets' not jump to conclusions just yet, by your description of the motive anyone is still a suspect." I defended Milo.
"Why are you defending Milo, he's obviously the killer and Kouki's attacker. You should be proving he's the killer." Cleo questioned.
"I don't think he's the killer, it doesn't fit him. He was friends with Kouki and while I think he was angry at Kouki for keeping Alter Ego from the rest of the group he would never kill a friend." I replied.
"Then we should move on, both sides will need to present evidence that will shatter any doubt about Milo's innocence or he is guilty." Says stated.
"Alright, let's go over the murder weapon. A single knife from the kitchen. What's strange about this is that there are no fingerprints on the knife, most of the previous murder attempts have left fingerprints on the murder weapon." I said.
"Why is that, skin has oil on it. That's what leaves a fingerprint no matter what." Alyara questioned.
"There are a lot of ways one can get rid of fingerprints, you can wipe it off said object or they ultized something that controlled the knife." Sayu said.
"I don't think any of those ways were used, I found no evidence. I think the reason why there were no fingerprints on the knife is that the hand was being covered by a glove, specifically a black one. The only black glove that I know of is the one associated with these black clothes that Dawson and Milo apparently wore. Meaning there is a third person who has black clothes." I said.
"But Milo is the only one left alive who wore the black clothes, he has to be the killer." Cleo said.
"Not nesscarily, I talked with Ramos during the investigation. He said he talked to Dawson the night he was murdered, Dawson said he was going to meet people who could give him hope. The way Dawson said it, it sounds like he was meeting more than one person. Milo is just one person." I responded.
"Yeah but it won't change the fact that most of the evidence points to Milo at least being present for the death of Dawson." Ramos stated.
"What about our missing witness, Milo could be it." Sayu said.
"There is one way we can prove which person Milo is, the killer or witness." I said.
"I don't deserve your help, I deserve your hate." Milo muttered.
"Milo I believe your innocent and I think I know why your acting like this but I need to prove your innocence or all our friends will die, including Kouki. I need you to help me." I muttered back.
"Remember that note I talked about earlier, I found it partially burnt. The rest of it was partially crumbled, likely the result of burning the note. The killer likely was destroying the evidence during the investigation time. If Sayu were to examine Milo's gloves she would either find ash or not." I said.
"I trust Sayu." Alyara said.
"She hasn't done anything to break our trust in her yet." Ramos added.
Sayu walked over to Milo and ordered him to take his gloves out. He took out his hands from his pant's pockets, he was wearing the gloves. Sayu studied Milo's gloves for a few minutes, turning them over every so often.
"There's no ash on his gloves, but I did notice something else. Milo, please remove your gloves." Sayu said. Milo did just that and everyone saw faded red splotches.
"This has to prove Milo is the killer." Cleo said.
"Yeah, I recognize blood stains from my boxing days. Those are blood stains, Dawson's blood stains." Ramos agreed with Cleo.
"If Milo is the killer and he didn't burn the note then who did? Our mysterious witness?" Alyara speculated.
"I think I know who our mysterious witness is,it's you Milo isn't it." I said.
"What does that mean? He has blood on his hands, what other explanation for that is other than him being the killer." Cleo said.
"There's blood on his hands yes, but only on his hands. If he were the killer then his gloves would be soaked in blood, not his hands. And Milo would have to wear his gloves in order for the knife to lack fingerprints. But there is blood on his hands so he must have taken them off before he attacked someone, I believe he's Kouki's attacker. It would make sense, Kouki is a very close friend so Milo wouldn't be able to kill him. But he also was sensitive to betrayal so he would have the rage to attempt murder. His hesitance and rage clashed, leading to several mistakes like not wearing gloves and waiting till the last minute to clean the blood on his hands. He's our witness and he knows who killed Dawson." I said. The room filled with silence, everyone processing the new information.
"Gah, she's right. As much as I don't want to admit it, I was wrong. The logic and evidence doesn't add up for for Milo being the killer." Ramos said.
"Then Milo knows who the killer is, he has to tell us." Alyara said.
"I can't, I can't condemn another friend to death." Milo said.
"Coward, you condemned Dawson to death but you won't deliver justice to his killer!" Ramos yelled.
"Dawson wasn't supposed to die, he was our friend. He didn't betray us, Kouki did. Kouki was our target, he was supposed to die for what he did. He betrayed my trust by not telling us about our way out, about Alter Ego. Dawson was onboard because Alter Ego meant he could have seen his sisters again but because Kouki did tell us, Alter Ego was destroyed. And then Dawson died and Kouki fell into a coma, and I feel guilty for both things. I can't decide whether to serve justice or to kill a friend, please leave me alone." Milo said.
"Hey Alyara, you said earlier that you interrupted me and Cleo. Can you describe what happened when you did?" Sayu asked.
"What? Why would you asked that out of the blue?" Alyara asked, surprised at the sudden request.
"Just do it." I said.
"Okay, I saw Sayu sitting in the kitchen sitting in the cafeteria. She was sipping some hot chocolate, I made myself known and Sayu acknowledged me. Cleo shot up from under the kitchen window and counter. She looked surprised to see Sayu there but that quickly disappeared when I mentioned Kouki needed help. Cleo rushed out of the cafeteria, she looked worried. " Alyara said.
Wait a minute, being in the kitchen, the constant accusations, the surgery mistakes, the sudden revelation of Milo's black clothes followed with an accusation of him being the killer. It all makes sense.
"Cleopatra Davis, you're the killer!" I accused Cleo of being the killer.
"W-What? How can you say that after everything I've done." Cleo responded to the accusations.
"Simple, all the evidence points to you. During the trial you've been constantly accusing Milo as the killer, that in itself is not suspicious but it does peak my interest. Then you brought up the fact that Milo has black clothes out of nowhere, you didn't tell us at the beginning and immediately went to trying to turn everyone against Milo. Also the surgery mistakes made on Kouki were a little suspicious, especially the frequentcy at you made them. Even if your emotions were causing you to make mistakes you wouldn't have made that much or you would have put them aside to help Kouki. Sayu said that the mistakes you made would have gone unnoticed if she hadn't spotted them and corrected them, an experienced surgeon like yourself would never have let them slip by. And then there's the fact that you were in the kitchen, you were shocked to see Sayu there. Now that alone is nothing to be suspicious of but I found the note in the kitchen partially burnt and hot. Meaning that it was burnt recently, if you have nothing to hide then you won't mind showing your hands or gloves to Sayu." I said.
"I...I...hehehe. HAHAHAHAHA." Cleo broker down into a fit of laughter, her eyes transforming into a completely different person. They were the eyes of someone who wanted to watch the world.
"W-What's going on here, please stop laughing." Alyara demanded.
"I can't, it took you this long to figure it out and you're still in denial. It's just so funny, Hahahaha." Cleo said.
"Why is she like this now, she was fine a moment ago. " Ramos said, trying hard to hide the fear within in him.
"She wasn't fine a moment ago, she hasn't been fine since Monokuma used the motive on her. " Sayu stated.
"That's right, from the moment Monokuma returned my memories I've been plotting to kill someone and manipulate everyone into voting wrong so I can watch everyone die horrible deaths." Cleo said joyfully.
"Her missing memories must have something to do with her mental state, she probably had a psychotic break but she reverted to her previous state when her memories were wiped. Only to return to her psychotic state when her memories were restored." I said.
"Right again, let me tell you a story. A year and a couple of months ago a group called Ultimate Despair stormed the school, killed most of the students and teachers before they selected us to be the participants in this killing game. They held us at a secret facility and when the Tradgedy was in full swing they transported us back to the school for the game to begin, I managed to escape and made my back home to my family. When I got there I discovered there mutilated beyond the point of recognition, my sisters were raped, burned, tortured, beaten and killed in manners that still make my blood boil. I went insane that day and Ultimate Despair found me shortly after. Guess I made a good impression because they decided to use me as the motive and the killer." Cleo said.
"I'm sorry about what happened Cleo to your family but it doesn't excuse what you did, you know what's about to happen." I said.
"Of course, but maybe you should recap for those suffering emotional distress right now." Cleo suggested.
"Here's what happened: Monokuma revealed the existence of Alter Ego, a computer program with the potential to help us escape. He destroyed it and left us to wallow in despair. We started turning on each other because some of us kept the existence of Alter Ego a secret, this caused anger among some of us. But that wasn't Monokuma's motive, his motive was to restore the memories of a specific person. With her memories and psychotic state restored Cleo immediately went about setting up a murder, she took advantage of the anger caused over Alter Ego's destruction and directed it towards Kouki. However just as Kouki's murder was about to commence, Dawson backed out. Likely the result of his growing feelings for Ramos and not wanting him to die. Cleo killer him in order to prevent him from revealing her plans and the part she played in them, much to the shock and horror of Milo. Taking advantage of his conflicting feelings Cleo manipulated Milo to continue with the plan while tried to destroy the evidence. Milo attacked Kouki but backed out at the last minute, leaving Kouki severely injured but alive. Milo was in such a state of shock about what he had just done and witnessed as well as his immense guilt over his part in hit that he got sloppy, leading to some evidence surviving. I discovered Kouki shortly after his attack and I rushed him to the nurse's office with Alyara getting help. She found both Sayu and Cleo in the cafeteria, Cleo was destroying some evidence while Sayu was gathering some by observing Cleo. When Cleo learned of Kouki's survival she rushed out of the cafeteria intending to finish the job, however she left behind the note that while partially burnt was still readable. This also left ash on her hands, which would come in handy later. She did her best to kill Kouki subtly but Sayu was there to prevent his death, panicking she forced Milo to begin disposing of their black clothes. But Ramos walked in on them, thinking quickly she placed suspicion on Milo by claiming she had found him with the black clothes. Ramos, blind with rage believed her. She then entered the trial intending to place all the blame and evidence on her accomplice, Milo." I explained.
"Bravo, bravo you did excellent Kagura. Monokuma if you will." Cleo said.
"Your wish is my command." Monokuma pulled a lever and a giant lottery machine popped out of the ground. We voted and the lottery machine spun, all three slots landed on the face of Cleo.
"One more thing before I'm dragged off to my execution, I'm not the Ultimate Despair traitor hiding amongst you." A chain shot out from the curtains and dragged Cleo away.
Game Over
Cleopatra Davis has been found guilty.
Time for the punishment!
Bred in the Wild
Cleo is hung by chains above a water tank, a crocodile is released into the tank. It looks around hungrily and it spots Cleo, she begins to be slowly lowered into the tank. The crocodile swims around happily in anticipation of its next meal. Cleo is submerged into the tank, the crocodile swims towards her. It sniffs her and swims away, Monokuma is above the tank and looks disappointed. He pulls a lever and piranhas are released into the tank, the water quickly turns blood red. A few minutes later several human bones surface with Monokuma chuckling.
We were escorted to the elevator a few minutes later, and we ascended in silence.
Alyara leaned over and asked. "Ultimate Despair traitor?"
"Later." I replied, I had somewhere else to be. The walk over to the nurse's office was silent except for my beating heart. I entered the room and saw Kouki was awake and it looked like he was expecting me.
"Hey" we both said before we started kissing, which then turned into a full on make out session before turning into...well I should probably spare the details since there might be kids reading this but I'll just say it was great.
End of Chapter
Surviving Students: 7
Kouki Yoshi: Alive
Alyara Sardonyx: Alive
Mikio Kilkumori: Desceased
Serra Raven: Alive
Ramos Luciano: Alive
Milo Karrick: Alive
Cleopatra Davis: Deceased
Megan Winslow: Deceased
Katsu Gekai: Deceased
Kagura Miyamoto: Alive
Sayu Akizuki: Alive
Axel Takashima: Deceased
William Gerardo: Deceased
Aima Jespersen: Deceased
Dawson Tall: Deceased
Kumo Yomohiro: Deceased