I don't know what to think... It definitely appears to be one of Hikaru's bobby pins, but... he couldn't have killed Yuki, could he? He would never do something like that... Right?

I realise I've tuned out a little and I try to focus back on what's being said, trying to ignore the dull ache I'm starting to feel in my heart.

"Well, it's suspicious, isn't it?" Kimi is saying, pointing an accusing finger at him. "What were you doing in Yuki's room?"

"I haven't been in Yuki's room!" Hikaru insists.

"Since before you murdered her?" Masashi inquires.

"I didn't!" Hikaru cries. "Please, everyone, you have to believe me! I wouldn't do this! I haven't done this!"

He looks at me, and I can see the fear in his eyes. Those sad eyes...

I can hear the others talking, but I'm not listening. For a split second, it's just me and him... Hikaru... you couldn't have, could you? After we...

It's only when he looks away again and I fall back into reality I realise I completely believe he's innocent. But the bobby pin would suggest he'd been in Yuki's room... and he didn't have an alibi...

Could I really risk ignoring the evidence now? It wouldn't be just my life I'd be risking if I made an error of judgment. Surely there had to be some evidence that he was innocent.

The others are still talking and arguing, bouncing questions and accusations off Hikaru and each other. I'm trying to focus but all I can think now is finding that one piece of evidence... There has to be something I've missed. Something that'll change things...

And then my focus is stolen again.

"Looks like this is my cue!" Monokuma cheers. Then he holds his paws up and announces, "Hope's Peak Academy's Secondary Branch is proud to present its brand new morphenomenal trial grounds!"

"Is he going to say that every time?" Yamato asks as Monokuma brandishes the silver key from wherever he's been hiding it and jams it into the locking mechanism that has risen up at the front of his throne.

The characteristic trilling of the device is my signal to grab onto my podium and hold on tightly as the podiums start to rise higher and higher, coiling in a spiral as we ascend towards the ceiling. Once again, the walls slide in towards us and then lock into place, and our stands follow suit, making two long rows.

This time, the left hand side starts with Masashi, then Blessing, then Yamato, then Ino, then Kimi. On the right hand side, I'm on the end facing off against Masashi, with Haru to my side, then Mitsu, then Miniro, then Daisuke, and finally Hikaru. Arata, Kaori, and Yuki's empty stands have joined onto the 'opposing' side, while Cho, Fumio, and Ayaka's have joined ours. As always, Monokuma is at the top end of the rows, furthest away from me, thankfully.

"Now, let's see..." Monokuma says with glee, "you're divided on whether or not Hikaru Okimoto is the big ol' meanie who is responsible for this crime, and now it's real scrum debate hours! Rebut your opponents to keep things moving smoothly, and I just know you'll come to a conclusion as a group! Ready? Good, then let's begin!"

Hikaru already looks defeated... and even though I believe him, I don't know what I can say to help his case, or keep this Trial going on... He's facing Arata's empty podium, and he just looks lost.

"I just don't understand how my bobby pin ended up there," he says.

Without a second's hesitation, Kimi cries, "The bobby pin in Yuki's room proves it was Hikaru!"

"B-but Yuki w-was the Ul-Ul-Ultimate Hairdresser," Daisuke replies, nervously adjusting his shirt collar. "Sh-she wore plenty of b-bobby pins."

"Only Hikaru had these blue ones though!" Ino responds, fists clenched.

"That doesn't mean Hikaru's the one who put it there," reasons Miniro.

"I'm kinda struggling to see why someone else would have one, though," Yamato admits, scratching his head. "Sorry, man..."

"Of course, it's possible that someone else had taken one to plant as evidence," Mitsu points out.

"But he was also one of the last people to be seen by the lake earlier," Blessing recalls. "I hate to think it of him – of anyone – but is it possible that was when he got into Yuki's room?"

Haru shakes his head in disagreement. "But there were several other people seen after he showed up too. And it seems pretty unlikely that he'd have gone completely unnoticed going into Yuki's room at that point."

My heart's in my mouth now... I can't think of a single thing. Masashi's about to speak and I can't think of a single thing to say...

And then I realise...

There's something I can do!

But it's a pretty huge risk... if I don't pull this off I could get everyone killed.

Is it worth it?

"Then it's possible he did it in the early hours of the morning, as he would have been alone around the time that Yuki went to the lake," Masashi suggests.

Do I do it?

Do I... lie?

Balling my hands into fists at my sides, I look over at Masashi who's staring at me, eyebrow raised, awaiting a reply. I need to make up my mind right now.

"But Hikaru wasn't alone in the morning," I say, trying to seem as natural as possible. "He was with me til after the time that Yuki was killed."

"Huh?" At the end of my row, I see Hikaru look up at me.

"I'm sorry, but I had to tell the truth, Hikaru," I tell him, hating myself for this. I look round at the others and shake my head. "Hikaru ended up staying in my room last night, so he wouldn't have been able to kill Yuki by the lake!"

"Ohoho, do I smell a salacious scandal?!" Monokuma squeals. "Doesn't it just get your heart pumping, upupu! Going doooooooown!"

With a clunk, the podiums are released, and one-by-one we start to descend downwards. The wind rushes through my hair, stinging at my eyes. The guilt at what I've just done is amplified by the sudden motion sickness, but I hold on tight and try to tune it out. If I'm right, I could have just saved all our lives.

And what if I'm wrong?

There's no time to think about that now...

With barely a chance to recover, the discussion continues.

"So Hikaru and Kei were together this morning," Yamato says, thoughtfully. "You mean you guys had a sleepover and didn't think to invite the rest of us?"

"Uh, it was more just that by the time we'd got downstairs and Hikaru had helped me back to my room we both kinda just passed out," I say, trying to act like I was embarrassed, while looking over at Hikaru the entire time. I feel sick with guilt for doing this but I'm still trying to silently signal with him that he needs to go along with it.

"Y... yeah," Hikaru says, finally, though he doesn't take his eyes off me the entire time. "I stayed in Kei's room."

"And you didn't think that this was relevant beforehand?" Masashi queries, eyeing us both with suspicion.

I had to think on the spot. The morning after... this morning, I guess... they'd all acted like they suspected something happened... I guess that works in my – our – favour.

"We kinda figured you guys already knew as much," I say, rubbing the back of my neck sheepishly. "Y'know... with the way you were teasing me in the Dining Hall and stuff..."

"But you'd came down together separately," Haru said.

I look at him as if I'm surprised at him for missing something obvious. "Well, yeah, we figured it would have looked less obvious that way."

"That does make sense," Miniro says with a nod. "And I guess by lunchtime Yuki had already been dead for hours."

"That does seem to be the case," Mitsu agrees. Her gaze lingers on me a little longer than I'm comfortable with – I can tell she probably suspects I haven't been completely honest, but she doesn't seem to be making any sign that she's going to expose my lie. "Then I suppose that leaves us with the question of how Hikaru's bobby pin found itself into Yuki's room in the first place."

"It could have been used to frame him," I say to the others, "like Mitsu suggested in the Scrum Debate."

"But why him?" asks Yamato.

"It does seem strange that someone would target Hikaru specifically," Miniro nods.

"It could have been a matter of convenience," Haru suggests. "Throw something into the mix that could have made this fairly open-and-shut..."

"But how would they have got one of Hikaru's bobby pins in the first place?" Blessing asks. She looks at Hikaru, almost apologetically. "I'm sorry for doubting you before, Hikaru, but do you think you could tell us who else could have possibly had one of them?"

Hikaru purses his lips and shakes his head, sadly. "I... I can't think, honestly. I took a few out when I'd tidied my hair up before the party, so it's possible I'd dropped a spare... except..." His eyes suddenly light up. "I gave one to Ino the other day!"

"H-huh?!" Ino squawks. "Don't go trying to pin this on me now!"

"He's right though," I nod. "It was in the Dining Hall. I remember because you'd asked him if it was the same one that had fell onto his plate at dinner the night before."

"I... well... okay, yeah, I did but what does that prove?" Ino says, folding her arms.

"For one, it shows that Hikaru is even less likely to have been the one person who could have left the bobby pin there," Haru says. "I don't recall you wearing a bobby pin like that last night though, so when did it end up in Yuki's room? Had it fell out of your pocket when you'd walked her back to her room?"

"No, no, no," Ino says, shaking her head rapidly. "I haven't had the thing since yesterday afternoon. I'd taken it out before we all started getting ready in the Salon."

"I do seem to remember seeing her take something out of her hair when we were in the Salon," Mitsu admits.

"I believe I do too, come to mention it," Kimi agrees, looking thoughtful for a moment. "I suppose that does make it all the more likely that Hikaru is not the culprit. I apologise to you."

Hikaru looks a little flustered. "I-It's fine, really. I get that it's... y'know... a crazy situation and all."

"But then the question is: how did the bobby pin get from the Salon to Yuki's room?" Blessing asks.

"Th-there seems to be three w-ways I can th-think of," Daisuke says, timidly raising a hand to get our attention as if he's in a classroom. "Either i-it was sn-snagged on Ms T-Tadeshi or Ms Watabe's cl-clothing when th-they'd returned to the S-Salon together, or Ms T-Tadeshi simply p-picked it up to use or re-return it to Mr O-Okimoto, o-or the culprit p-picked it up to pl-plant as evidence."

"Hey, that's a good call, Daisuke!" Miniro says, beaming with pride as he flashes Daisuke a thumbs up. "Good job!"

Daisuke's face deepens into a blush. "Th-thank you, Mr Sh-Shirane."

"I suppose it isn't outside the realm of possibility that the bobby pin had attached itself to Ino or Yuki's clothing, or that Yuki herself picked it up" Haru says, rubbing his chin. "I'm assuming you aren't aware of this?"

Ino shakes her head. "Nah, not at all."

"Then it would seem that it must have either been intentionally moved by Yuki or the culprit," Haru concludes, then turns to look between Kimi and Blessing. "Whereabouts in the room did you find the bobby pin anyway?"

"Near the door," Blessing says. "It was perhaps only a foot or so from the doorway, so Kimi had noticed it as soon as we stepped in. That was when we also noticed the damaged ElectroID."

"Yeah, I've been wondering about that," Mitsu says. "That's two bits of evidence found in that same spot now, while the note was found at the far side of Yuki's room on the bed. Doesn't that seem a bit odd?"

"The ElectroID and the bobby pin were both found at the door," Hikaru frowns. "But what does that mean?"

The placement of the three items... and the circumstances in which we had found them... I try to think back over the case, and the evening overall...

"I've got it!" I say, as realisation dawns on me. "The ElectroID and the bobby pin ended up where they were discovered in Yuki's room after the note had been delivered."

"But the door was locked, and surely the only way to lock it would have been using Yuki's ElectroID," Masashi counters. "How can you account for that if the thing was broken?"

"Because I don't think it was broken before anyone else went to Yuki's room," I say. "I've been thinking about it... and the way the ElectroID was positioned – and now the bobby pin – makes me think that it wasn't as simple as it just being locked within the room."

"To think we're dealing with a locked room mystery," Yamato says, dramatically. "It's like something from a detective show!"

"I don't think there's much of a mystery to this particular aspect of it though," I say. "The condition the ElectroID was in and where we found it makes me think that it had been stuck under Yuki's door."

"I was thinking the same thing," Haru admits. "It seemed fairly likely going by what the others had said about the room, and of course, the condition it appeared to be in, that that was the case."

"But there's not a very big gap," frowns Kimi. "How would it have fit under?"

"The ElectroIDs are fairly thin," I say, lifting mine up and waving it around for emphasis. "I reckon with a bit of effort it would have at least got most of the way under the door."

"Only for it to be damaged when the door is opened," Haru concludes.

"But why would someone go to the effort of doing such a thing?" Blessing asks.

Hikaru snaps his fingers. "Oh! So that if anyone were to check their map on the ElectroID to look for Yuki it would appear as if she was in her room the entire time!"

"So it was a distraction tactic?" Yamato asks, scratching the side of his face absent-mindedly. "I guess that makes sense. I'd be more likely to be confused if I'd looked at the map and saw that she was down by the lake by herself."

"That's very true," agrees Haru. "Also, now I think about it, if we're running with the theory that the culprit is the one who put Yuki's ElectroID under the door, I'd say it's almost definitely the culprit who planted the bobby pin too. That would just be too coincidental otherwise."

I nod in agreement. I don't know the full story here but I know in my heart that this was someone else – not Hikaru! I run my hands through my hair as I try to picture the order of events in my head. Fortunately, Mitsu seems to have been thinking it through too.

"Alright, so we've determined and theorised so far that after the party last night, Yuki received a note asking her to come to the lake at 5am. Once she got there she was killed, though we're still to determine everything that happened down at the lake. After this, the culprit would have attempted to 'tidy' things up slightly, with forcing the ElectroID and the bobby pin under Yuki's door being one of the last things they would have done before retreating to their room."

"When you put it like that, it's pretty creepy," shudders Yamato. "It screws with my head enough as it is knowing that someone in this room is a killer, but to think someone did that and then went to bed in one of the rooms near me is a whole other level of weird."

Not sure he's got that the right way round there, to be honest, but I'm not gonna question it. Instead, I turn my thoughts back to what Mitsu was saying...

"So we should focus on what happened after Yuki arrived at the lake," I say. "We've kind of briefly touched on it so far but we've been focusing on some of the peripheral evidence."

Mitsu nods her agreement. "There are several things we still haven't discussed yet, and I think they could provide a lot of insight to this case once we piece them together. For starters, I think I'd like to focus on Yuki."

"That sounds sensible," agrees Haru. "There's other evidence at the lake we can consider too, but for now I think it would be good to take a look over the evidence pertaining to Yuki and the condition we found her in first."

"Well, we already mentioned the head wound," Blessing says, deep in thought. "I am... not sure what else there is to mention, if I'm honest."

"There was definitely more to consider than that," Masashi says. "If I recall, Yuki's clothing was all wet, and partly torn."

"Hey, that can't be right!" Yamato cries, slapping his fist against his palm. "How could her clothes be all wet if she'd just been drowned? You must have just mistaken the cold for wetness."

"It was not the cold," Masashi says through gritted teeth. "Even taking a moment to look at how her clothing looks shows us that it's wet."

Yuki's body appears in the space between us all as the hologram shifts and changes, like a spectre. Her digital ghost rotates slowly, and despite myself I feel goose bumps appearing up my arms as I see the hologram form of the wound in the back of her head. Trying to ignore that, I focus on her clothes.

"I... guess you were right, Masashi," Yamato admits, looking a little spooked. "My bad."

"Then, of course, our next question is how could Yuki's clothes be wet when only her head had been submerged in water?" Kimi asks.

"Could it be from melted snow?" suggests Miniro.

Mitsu shakes her head. "Not for that amount of dampness in her clothing, I would say," she replies. "It was also very cold, and I don't think her body temperature would have remained warm enough for that to happen out in the snow for that long after she was killed."

"So how were her clothes wet if they were only ever on dry land?" Blessing asks.

"Because they weren't!" I realise, clapping my hands together. "The only way Yuki's clothes could have ended up that damp to the extent that we could still notice it twelve hours after it had happened is if at some point Yuki's whole body had been in the water!"

"Was wondering when someone would get it," I hear Masashi mutter.

"You do realise that we're all meant to work on this together and not hold out, right?" Hikaru tells him.

"I believe Mitsu has pointed out before that if one person does all the talking it could potentially end up being seen as leading the case in a certain way," Masashi counters. He turns to face Mitsu with a smug smile. "Unless of course you've changed your stance on that?"

Mitsu seems completely unfazed. "Not at all," she tells him. "I agree that to remain unbiased it should be a group effort. But I also think that means that others should be encouraged to find the answers as opposed to just completely withholding any answers until someone else happens to mention it." She turns away from him and looks at me, coolly. "So you think she had completely ended up in the water at some point, yes?"

I nod, slowly. "It's the only possibility that makes sense to me. I can't see someone going to the effort of splashing water over her just for the hell of it."

"Obviously not," Mitsu agrees. "So then, we now have three points in our timeline of how things happened at the lake. One: Yuki arrives at the lake. Two: at some point she finds herself in the water. Three: she's dead by the water's edge. But what happens in between?"

"And perhaps now is when we take a step back and consider the other evidence from the lake, separate from Yuki," Haru suggests. "For starters, I believe Kei and Hikaru found some marks in the snow?"

"That's right," Hikaru confirms, his fingers dancing over the screen of his ElectroID. The hologram changes from the floating form of Yuki to a view of the drag marks and the footprints that we'd found. "We were pretty careful not to disturb anything."

"Th-they seem to go along th-the lakeside," Daisuke notes.

"Like they're leading towards my Lab," Miniro agrees. "Hey, when you guys searched the place earlier, did you find anything important?"

"There was one thing," Hikaru says, "but I think I'd like to wait a moment before it becomes relevant."

"Of course," Miniro says, nodding his understanding.

"So, wait, why do we think they are leading towards the Lab?" Kimi asks. "Could it not be that it was something being dragged out of there instead?"

"No," I reply, shaking my head. I zoom in a little on the footprints. "Theyre only partial prints of someone's shoes, but you can see from the angle that they're going towards the Lab instead of away from it."

"Ah, of course, I see what you mean now," Kimi nods. "But what would be getting dragged up there? There was no sign of anything that could have left marks like those at the lakeside if I recall correctly."

"There was one thing," Yamato says, looking a little pained. He glances briefly at Ino as if he's afraid of saying anything in front of her. She doesn't even bother looking up at him – it's as if she's just lost the will to be confrontational, which is... great on one hand, but on the other it's a little eerie seeing her like this.

"G-go on, Mr N-Nagai," Daisuke urges.

"Well, uh... Yuki, y'know?" Yamato replies. "Would make sense, right?"

"You think Yuki got dragged along the shore?" Blessing gasps.

"I suspected the same," Haru admits. "Like Kimi said, there was no sign of anything else that could have been dragged along like that."

"But why would someone do that if they'd already killed her?" I ask.

"Well, to pick up on what I said to Miniro a couple minutes ago," Hikaru says, "I had a theory after looking things over." He pauses and looks round at us, like he's waiting for permission to continue, having a deer in the headlights moment. But then he seems to settle again and he fumbles for his ElectroID. A second later, the hologram changes again to display a view of the gap in the inside of Miniro's Talent Lab.

"Y'see," Hikaru says, "there's a gap here that links the outside lake to a body of water inside Miniro's Lab." He changes the hologram to show everyone the gap from the other side. "And at first I thought maybe someone could have used that gap to try and send evidence into Miniro's Lab, either to frame him, or just dispose of it. And I think the culprit did have that idea."

"So there was evidence in Miniro's Lab?" asks Ino, eyeing the sailor with suspicion now. Hikaru shakes his head.

"Oh, no, there couldn't have been!" he says. "In fact, by the looks of it, I'd say it was completely impossible for anything to travel between the two sides of the gap. Kei noticed it too, I think."

All eyes are on me now, and I look up at the two images of either side of the gap. I think back to when we'd first looked at either side, and that strange niggling feeling in my head that something had been off about it... And then I realise.

"The flow of the water!" I cry. "The water on the lakeside was flowing out of the gap as if the water was flowing back into the lake, but inside Miniro's Lab the water was flowing in the opposite direction as if the water was flowing into the body of water in there!"

"Is that even possible?" Yamato asks.

"It would appear so," Masashi says, inspecting the hologram with a raised eyebrow. "It's hardly the Pacific-Atlantic Divide but it's not unheard of. Though I suspect Monokuma has a hand in this somewhere."

The bear had been quiet for a while now and I'd almost completely forgot he was there. In fact, by the looks of things he'd fell into a deep sleep, but at the mention of his name he jerked upright and pointed an accusing paw at Masashi.

"You found the killer yet?" he cries.

"Obviously not," Masashi snorts. Monokuma sighs and points his paw at me.

"You found 'em yet?"

"No."

He shakes his head irritably and points the same paw at Mitsu now.

"How about you, Lois Lane?"

"Of course we haven't," she says. "And if you can't stay awake long enough to pay attention I'm sure we'd all be happy with adjourning."

"No can do, kiddo," Monokuma replies. "Just cos I go for forty winks doesn't mean the rest of the world does."

Mitsu hums under her breath and turns away from the bear again. An almost awkward silence fills the air.

Of course, Monokuma is the one to break it.

"So, uh... did one of you need something?"

"The waterflows in the lake and Miniro's Lab," Hikaru says. "We were wondering... well... why they go in opposing directions."

Monokuma cackles. "Oh, are you kidding me? Jeez, it's a pretty simple piece of architecture, y'know. Also it takes pressure off of the ice spring deep, deep beneath the ground."

"Shouldn't that be a hot spring?" Yamato asks.

"If you like freezer burn, yeah," Monokuma retorts. "Anyway, I'm not here to give y'all an architecture lesson – save that for afterwards if anyone's still alive!"

"So, uh, anyway..." Hikaru says, eyeing Monokuma warily for a moment before turning back to the rest of us, "like I was saying, the way the water flows in two opposing directions would make it impossible for anything to travel through the gap. Especially what I think the culprit was trying to put through."

"Which was what?" Miniro asks.

"Yuki's body," Hikaru says, grimly.

"Oh, jeez..." Yamato groans. "So someone was trying to frame Miniro, huh?"

"I think it was a matter of just framing anyone," Haru says. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and gazes up at the hologram. "Possibly to muddy the waters, so to speak, they could attempt to set things up so that the body would have eventually been found in Miniro's Lab, but also Hikaru's bobby pin would have been found in Yuki's room. It's random, and based on opportunity and chance. Of course, that would also explain why Yuki's clothes ended up so wet."

"So the culprit tried to get Yuki's body into Miniro's Lab but the water flow prevented that," Hikaru says, "and then Yuki's body wound up just drifting into the lake?"

"That would seem to be the case," Blessing says, sadly. "A terrible way to end things."

"Except that wasn't how it ended," I point out. "We're still missing something!"

"How d-do you me-mean?" Daisuke asks.

"Think about where Yuki's body was when it was found," I say. "If the water had just washed her into the lake, how did she somehow wash up onto the shore with only her head submerged?"

"It would be impossible," Mitsu agrees. "There's also still a discrepancy in our timeline so far."

"How do you mean?" Yamato asks, scrunching his face up in confusion.

"There's the small matter of the cause of death in the Monokuma File," she explains. "We've seen that Yuki's cause of death was drowning."

"Hm, yeah, that screws things up a little," he admits with a sigh. "I mean, we couldn't even prove that it was Yuki's body that was dragged over to the water anyway."

"No, that's wrong," I shake my head. "There was a torn piece of fabric snagged on the rocks leading over to the lakeside."

"Huh, there was?"

I nod. "And it was dry, unlike the rest of Yuki's clothes. I'd guess her clothes had been torn slightly when she was being dragged past the rocks over to the gap."

"That seems the most logical conclusion to make," Masashi agrees. "Of course, you all realise what this means?"

When this doesn't spur on an immediate reaction he rolls his eyes and flares out the collars of his coat melodramatically.

"What this means..." he says, slowly, "is that Yuki wasn't dead when she was being dragged towards the water."

"Oh, god!" Hikaru gasps. "You mean she was probably just unconscious at first."

"It would appear so," Masashi says. "Adding up the evidence that we have looked at so far, and the contradictions that don't quite make sense, it really does seem to be the only thing that can appease those two situations – the head wound and the cause of death." He held up a finger as he counted the two, as if for emphasis.

"So i-if she was unc-conscious when she went into th-the water, th-that would b-be how she drowned?" Daisuke asks.

"Obviously not," Masashi replies. "As Kei pointed out, the position her body was found in would have been impossible to wash up in just by chance."

"So what happened then?" Miniro asks, his frown deepening. "I'm sorry, everyone, but this is quite a lot to take in."

"It's fine, Miniro," Haru says, "I think we all feel a little like that. What I think Masashi is getting at is that Yuki's attacker – the culprit in this case – is the person responsible for the condition Yuki's body was in when it was first found."

"So the culprit drowned her?" Kimi asks. "I must admit, I too am finding this all very hard to piece together. Yuki was dead, but then she was not, but then she was again?"

"She wasn't and then she was," Hikaru replies. "If I remember correctly, Yuki's hair was all messed up at the back, as if a chunk of it had been pulled at in a struggle. I suppose that would be what happened when the culprit... forced Yuki's head under the water."

"Jesus..." Yamato murmurs.

"But why would the culprit need to do that?" Blessing asks. "What could have possibly happened for things to end up like that?"

"Well, Yuki got thrown into the water while unconscious," Haru says. "I'd say it's very likely that she regained consciousness once she was in the lake... And what would you do if you found yourself floating in an ice cold body of water?"

I realise straight away what he's getting at... "I'd swim for the shore," I say, quietly. Haru looks at me, intensely, and nods.

"Exactly!" he says. "And I think that's exactly what Yuki did. She'd be disorientated from the head wound and the cold water, but I imagine the adrenaline would have got her to the shore before the shock kicked in. I bet in the moment she probably didn't even consider that the person who had attacked her would still be there..."

"I think that fills in a lot of the gaps in our little timeline of this case," Mitsu says. For a second, she looks very troubled as she considers things, but she sniffs and straightens her back a little, regaining her composure. "We have our middle and our end, now we're just missing the beginning."

"What happened when Yuki got to the lake, you mean?" Hikaru asks.

"Yes," she nods. "To put it in even simpler terms, we need to look at Yuki's injury again."

"The head wound," Miniro clarifies. "But is there really anything that can help us there?"

"There is something," Haru says. "When I inspected the head wound I noticed these little flakes were in it, as well as stuck to her hair, but only in that particular spot."

He takes a moment to tap at his ElectroID screen, and the hologram flickers and then reforms to show a close-up view of the bloody mark on Yuki's head. Despite the situation, I found myself marvelling at just how detailed the hologram displays could be, as the flakes that Haru had mentioned – and I had seen myself earlier – were clear to see.

Kimi confused. "But what does that tell us?"

"I-I think Mr T-Takezaki m-might be referring to the p-possibility that th-the flakes were left b-b-behind by the m-murder weapon," Daisuke replies.

"Couldn't it just be like... ice particles?" Yamato suggests, trying not to look to closely at the hologram. Understandable, to be honest – it is a pretty gruesome sight to see again...

"I don't think so," I say, shaking my head. "While there did seem to be frost in Yuki's hair, you can see the flakes are kind of darker, and more rough-looking at the edges to really be the same."

Mitsu gazes up at the hologram and squints a little. "Also the fact that there's only a few of them in the wound, and none anywhere else, would suggest that it was caused by something else and not just the temperature."

"But then what could the murder weapon be?" Miniro asks. "What would leave something like that behind?"

Masashi suddenly clears his throat to get everyone's attention. "Well, to save you all the trouble of having to think too hard, I think I'll step in now." With a particuarly showy flourish, he hits something on his ElectroID and the hologram shifts and changes again, reforming to show...

"The baseball bat from the Gym!" I cry out.

"Yes, thank you," Masashi says, rolling his eyes.

"Hey, I remember that!" Yamato nods. "We looked at it earlier! Oh, hey! I just realised, I was right all along!"

"Right about what?" Ino sighs, giving him a dirty look.

"The thing that Kei said I said like aaaaaaaages ago! It had to link to the Gym! The culprit wouldn't have went there just to tear up a bit of poster to write a note on – there had to be something else they did there too! We've come full circle!" Yamato enthuses, punching the air. He strikes what I guess is meant to be a heroic pose, hands on hips. "Gee, feels good being one of the clever kids!"

"Ahem, yes, well..." Masashi appears to have had the wind taken out of his sails a little, "if we could get back to the matter at hand..."

"Of course," Haru says. "So you suspect this bat could be the murder weapon?"

"I do," Masashi confirms. "As I believe Kei did."

"That's right," I agree. "It stood out when we were searching the Equipment Room."

"I don't think that can be right," Ino says, frowning. "There's no blood on it."

"Exactly," I say.

"Exactly?" she echoes, eyebrow raised.

"There was a sign in the Equipment Room too," I explain. "Uh, lemme see..." I lean down to try and find what I'm looking for on the screen.

Masashi sighs. "Don't bother. I've got it here." With another melodramatic roll of the eyes, he swipes his finger across the screen and the hologram begins to form letters, several at a time, glowing gold in the air between us all.

"'A note to all staff and students'," Blessing reads. "'All gym equipment, besides materials specifically for use in the swimming pool, are to be kept indoors and away from any liquids due to a prone to extreme rusting. Drinks should be stored in bottles with sport caps to prevent accidental spillage at all times.'"

"So the bat rusted because it got wet?" Kimi asks.

"Because the culprit would have tried to clean Yuki's blood off of it," Mitsu says.

"Like you said earlier, Mitsu, about the culprit trying to be sneaky," Miniro points out. "They probably thought by washing the blood off they could put the bat back and everyone would be none the wiser."

"Oh, of course!" Hikaru gasps, suddenly, taking us all by surprise. "The flakes in Yuki's wound are what's come off of the bat when it's began to peel from getting wet. Little flecks of whatever kind of paint it is that's covered the bat!"

"But it wouldn't have been wet before it hit her head, surely?" Kimi says with a slight frown.

"I think there would be a few potential opportunities for it to get wet before it was used to hit Yuki," Haru says. "For one, if the equipment in the Gym is as prone to extreme rusting as the Equipment Room notice says, it's very possible that even the amount of moisture in the air by the Lake could have had some effect on the bat."

"That would make sense," Mitsu agrees. "I imagine the moisture in the air wouldn't have been enough to actually cause the bat to start rusting instantly, but I think it could be very possible that it would have been enough that when the bat made contact with Yuki's head, it transferred a few flakes of paint onto her."

"But if just a few flakes of paint came off it then why is it looking so chewed up and rusty?" Yamato asks.

"Weren't you listening?" sighs Kimi. "After the bat was used, the culprit presumably tried to wash the blood off it so they could return it to... where did you say it was again?"

"Weren't you listening?" Yamato retorts with a smug grin. "The Equipment Room in the Gym."

"Well, I haven't been in there since the first day it became available to us, I apologise," Kimi says, haughtily.

"Um... a-apologies if I've m-missed something b-but wouldn't it a-appear that we've r-r-ran out of evidence?" Daisuke stammers. "L-looking over the i-information on my Ele-ElectroID, it c-certainly seems that we've covered e-everything we'd f-found."

"Shit..." Yamato breathes.

And Daisuke's right, I realise with horror. We've looked at every piece of evidence in this case that we'd found during our investigations, but nothing actually points us in the direction of a culprit.

"Could it really be..." I murmur, my words catching in my throat. No one replies. I look round at the others, but no one seems to be focusing now. We're all in our own heads now, it would seem... I feel myself slump forward a little, gazing down at my shoes now. "Could it really be... we've lost?"

"No."

The answer catches me offguard a little, and I look up again with a start to see...

"Hikaru?"

He's already facing me when I look up, his eyes wide and tearful. But there's something else in them too... something bright and powerful... Like a determination to succeed... Like hope...

His fists are clenched, and he's trembling a little, but there's no ignoring the steel in his voice.

"I said no. We can't give up now!"

"Oh, be quiet!" Masashi roars, slamming his fist down on the podium. "What do you accomplish with this except give us false hope? Are you going to conjure new evidence out of thin air? Or is someone going to magically come rescue us? Well?!"

"No," Hikaru says, rubbing a tear out of his eye with the back of his hand. "I can't conjure new evidence out of thin air."

"Then sh-"

"But if we all work together, we might be able to," Hikaru says, speaking over Masashi. "We've looked over the evidence so far, and we have a timeline. But this can't be where we give up! This can't be where we decide we've reached the end of this horrible, evil game! This is the moment when we should be looking back at everything. Not just what we discussed here, or what we found during our investigations. Think back over the past few days. It could be anything, it could be nothing! But just accepting that this is where it ends... I can't do that!"

During the course of his speech, he's began to properly cry, tears racing down his cheeks – eerie and golden in the light from the hologram display.

"Hikaru..." I murmur. He's crying, but... he seems so defiant and determined and... it makes me feel ashamed. Ashamed that I could feel myself giving up...

"He's right."

I look round to see that it's Ino who's spoken. She reaches out and gently presses the screen of her ElectroID, and the hologram dissipates, then looks over to the empty podium where Yuki's portrait is propped up. Even with the light from the hologram gone, I can still see the marks on Ino's face where tears are running down.

"He's right," she says again. "Who the hell are we to give up when we haven't found out who did this to Yuki?! How could we ever face her again knowing that we let her killer go free?"

"Y-you're right, Ms W-Watabe," Daisuke says. He wipes at his eyes with his sleeve, and his face is resolute. "Ms T-Tadeshi... Yuki... was our friend... and we... o-owe it to her."

"Well, I agree with these guys," Miniro adds, offering Daisuke a thumbs up and a reassuring smile. "It just wouldn't be honourable to give up now."

"I... I agree," Blessing says. "Yuki was our friend, and to go to the next life with the regrets of failing her... I won't do it!" She clenches her fists at her sides. "I refuse to give up!"

"As do I!" Kimi agrees, throwing her hair over her shoulder in a dramatic motion. "It is our responsibility... our duty to get to the bottom of this!"

"Well, I wouldn't wanna be the only one not helping out," Yamato says with a shrug. "Gotta try at least, right?"

"Who said anything about giving up?" Masashi sneers. "Not me."

"That's more like it, Masashi," Haru says. He takes his hands out of his pockets and claps them together. "I guess we're all back onside?"

I realise that Mitsu and I are the only ones who haven't said anything yet. The others all seem to have found a second wind...

Mitsu raises her head and looks round at the others, eyebrow raised.

"Oh, had you all given up?" she says, innocently. "Sorry, I was deep in thought."

Despite the situation, I find myself laughing a little. It's like that's been enough to really kick me out of my moment of defeat. I turn to Monokuma.

"You get that? We haven't given up yet!" I tell him. Monokuma looks back at me for a moment, head cocked slightly to the side like a curious child.

"All the better," he says with relish. "Makes it all the more interesting when you begin to lose hope all over again. In fact... how about we make this more interesting?"

"I don't like the sound of that..." Yamato says.

"Look, you kids know I love a good tension-building countdown, right?" Monokuma says, standing up to his full height and producing a remote from... I'm not sure where. He aims it down at the centre of the room and jabs at a button. A moment later the hologram display flickers into life, though this time something's different... At first I think the hologram is just a sphere, but as I look closer I realise there's digits in it too, already racing downwards as the milliseconds turn to seconds...

"What the hell?!" cries Hikaru.

"What the fuck is that?" yelps Yamato.

"It's a tension-building countdown, obviously!" Monokuma cackles. I'm suddenly aware that the screens around the room have changed to display the same countdown. "In one minute and forty-nine seconds, a bomb goes off on someone's podium. The same thing will happen once every sixty seconds after, until you figure out who the culprit is! How d'you like that?!"

"Wait, what?!" I cry, eyes wide with terror. "You can't do that!"

"Um, I think you'll find I can, y'know," Monokuma says. "Perks of being the Headmaster, y'know? I get bored, I get to spice things up a little. I mean, let's face it, you're all probably gonna die anyway – if anything, I'm just speeding up the process!"

"I-"

"Kei, shut up and focus!" Haru snaps. Sweat's already beading on his forehead now as panic sets in. "Arguing with Monokuma won't achieve anything now. We need to think. Just like Hikaru said!"

Just like Hikaru said, I think to myself. Think back on everything.

This case... this whole case... Drowned. Struggle. Water. Dragged. Unconscious. Struck. Arrived. Note...

Note... the Gym... the bat... both from the Gym...

Why the Gym? Why the Gym?

Who had all been to the Gym over the past few days that I knew of?

I can feel my heart pounding in my chest, and I'm trying to tune it out, but it's distracting... The thought that any moment now I could just d-

The explosion takes me off my feet.

For a second, the entire world stops...

And then my feet are back on the podium and I'm clutching onto the sides in white-knuckled terror. The stand to the side of me – the one formerly used by Fumio – had been the one to explode. There are screams and cries of shock and fear all around.

"Tick, tock, tick, tock," Monokuma says, gleefully.

"Shut up!" snaps Mitsu. Even she's lost her cool now – I can just see her trembling slightly as the smoke from Fumio's now totally destroyed podium fades away again.

Less than sixty seconds. We might not get so lucky a second time.

The Gym...

Fifty seconds...

Who had been to the Gym recently? Think back...

Forty seconds...

Me, obviously...

Thirty seconds...

"You look pleased about something," a voice says, and I yelp in surprise...

What else what else what else?

...turning to see Miniro and Daisuke who are sitting at a plastic table next to several bulky vending machines.

Twenty seconds...

"Oh, hey, Kei!" Yuki says, brightly...

Ten seconds...

Shit.

But she said...

Five seconds...

Four...

I have to be right.

Three...

She definitely said...

Two...

This is my only chance...

One...

"Stop!" I bellow, throwing my arms out wide. "I know who the culprit is!"

Monokuma fumbles with the remote and jabs it, just as the countdown on the screens are on the brink of hitting zero. I find myself tensing instinctively, preparing for the worst... but it doesn't come.

"Well, go on, then, coffee boy," Monokuma snaps, paws on hips. "If this is just to try and buy you some more time, I'm gonna be pissed! It was gonna be really funny when the next bomb went off."

"I know who the culprit is," I say again, "but I'd like to go over the case from the beginning."

"Kei, are you sure?" Hikaru asks.

"Trust me," I say to him. He nods back at me.

Monokuma sighs. "Well, go on then. If anything it'll just make it more worthwhile when I get to switch the detonators back on again."

"Okay," I say, taking a deep breath. "Here's everything that happened in this case!

"It all started the day of the party. The culprit made their way to the Gym, perhaps only with the initial goal of finding a murder weapon, and in the Equipment Room they found the baseball bat. At some point they also tore off a shred of poster paper, and smuggled both that and the baseball bat, and presumably stashed it in their room in the Dormitories.

"Now, we skip ahead to after the party, when the culprit was certain that Yuki would be in her room. It would have been easy enough to slide the note under the door, or perhaps even knock the door and leave the note for Yuki to notice. Either way, Yuki read the note, requesting that she came down to the Lake at 5am. It's possible she thought it was from Ino, who she had been with shortly before returning to her room.

"Yuki did as the note requested, and made her way down to the Lake for the requested time. But I think it's probably safe to say that she didn't meet the person she was expecting to meet at all. Yuki would have been struck with the baseball bat at this point, though it's at this stage where things start to go wrong for the culprit. Firstly, they had missed the notice in the Equipment Room that explained the gear in there was prone to rusting extremely fast, so the bat was at risk of peeling. The blow that struck Yuki's head was enough to leave fragments in the wound.

"The second mistake they didn't realise was even more important... Yuki was still alive. Unconscious, but alive. At this point, the culprit attempted to move Yuki's unconscious body over towards the gap that water flowed to and from between the lake and Miniro's Talent Lab, seemingly in some attempt to mix things up by having Yuki's body found in there. In the process of moving Yuki, the culprit left the drag marks and partial footprints that Hikaru and I had found, and also a shred of Yuki's torn clothing that had snagged on the rockface.

"The culprit didn't realise that the water flow made it impossible for anything to wash through the gap into Miniro's Lab though, so when they let Yuki's body go it went the opposite direction, out into the Lake. And at this point, Yuki must have woken up in the water and panicked. And what would anyone else do if they were in that situation? Try and swim to shore.

"But the culprit was still there. Yuki would have been too weak to put up much of a fight though, so it wouldn't have taken much for the culprit to overpower her and force her head beneath the water... and drown her, leading to the final cause of death as mentioned in the Monokuma File.

"Afterwards, it was just a matter of tidying things up a little. The culprit probably attempted to wash the blood off of the baseball bat in the Lake, still not aware of the rust problem with the Gym equipment. Probably assuming no-one would notice anyway, they returned the bat to the rack in the Equipment Room, before returning to the Dormitories.

"There were only two little details left for the scene to be set. The first was Hikaru's bobby pin. Initially, it had been given to Ino, but she had removed it and left it in the Salon earlier that day. The other thing was Yuki's ElectroID. To delay us discovering anything too quickly, the culprit attempted to force the ElectroID under the door of Yuki's room, along with Hikaru's bobby pin. If the ElectroID was in Yuki's room, then any of us looking for her on our Map page would assume that she was in her room too, as Daisuke and Yamato were when we were looking for them too. The bobby pin was just an extra bit of window dressing. They'd struggled to muddy the waters by framing Miniro, so this gave them a second chance at framing someone else, though the culprit was seemingly unaware that Hikaru and I were in the same room at the time.

"The last detail came after we had found Yuki's body, when Monokuma unlocked Yuki's door to allow us to investigate her room. The force of the door was enough to damage the ElectroID, accounting for the condition we found it in not long after.

"All in all, the culprit's plan relied on a lot of chance and planning… and when it came down to it, really, their plan went off with barely a hitch. At least, nothing that threatened to expose their identity. Until they entered this Trial Ground... when their own lie exposed the truth.

"And that's why... the killer has to be you!"

TRIAL INTERMISSION

11 STUDENTS REMAINING