After Toujou had been brought back to her feet, the students took more time to look at their fallen friend. The four who were already there were only casually aware that others had begun pouring into the room, as their attention was too consumed by Gonta's corpse.

"Gonta-kun. All you wanted was to keep everyone safe," Akamatsu lamented.

"Why... why is it always the people who are nice?" Yumeno wondered.

Hoshi scoffed. "Trust me, it only gets worse."

He was right of course. The death of Gonta was but a hint of an even greater tragedy. One member of the class was a murderer. And the potential suspects were rolling in.

"What the hell is this?!" Momota exclaimed.

"Gonta! Wh-why... how...?" Angie asked of no one.

"Aww... he was one of the few of you I kinda liked," Ouma commented.

Saihara made a beeline for Akamatsu. "What happened?"

"I don't know!" the pianist replied. "We were the ones who discovered the body. I haven't had the chance to investigate yet. But..."

"What?"

"When we got here Toujou-san was unconscious too," Akamatsu explained.

Harukawa moved toward the maid, an inquisitive look in her eye. "You were unconscious?"

"Indeed, I'm not sure what happened. I heard my door open and the next thing I knew the world had gone dark," the silver-haired girl replied. "I woke up to Akamatsu-san's cries of relief and Gonta-kun's dead body."

"Mm... a likely story," Ouma remarked.

Toujou sighed. "Yes, I suppose my story is suspicious. But I assure you I am just as much in the dark here as you."

"In any case, we need to start investigating," Harukawa commanded.

"I'd agree, but we're still missing two people," Saihara pointed out.

The group looked around, and indeed, Saihara was correct.

"Kiibo and Miu are totes no-shows," Angie realized. "Where are they?"

"That's what I'd like to know!"

The teens turned to see their less-than-cuddly captor come into view. He seemed frustrated with the absence of the other two students.

"It was obnoxious enough gathering up you kids back when the Body Discovery Announcement didn't tell you where the corpse was. I finally think to fix that and you kids can't be bothered to listen! Honestly, what is wrong with your generation...?" the bear ranted.

"Wait, you don't know where they are either?" Akamatsu asked, her concern plain on her face.

"Of course I know where they are! I'm the headmaster, I know everything!" Monokuma continued. "I just want to know what's taking them so long. Fortunately, I have my best team on it!"

"And we all know what that means..." Momota said, his hand brought to his forehead in frustration.

"HELLO-KUMA!"

"I was right..."

Just as Momota had predicted, the three remaining Cubs had arrived with Iruma and Kiibo in tow. However, there was something very strange about the both of them.

"Wait... why aren't they...?" Akamatsu inquired.

Monokuma nodded in understanding. "Oh... that would explain it. They didn't show up because they didn't hear the announcement. How could they if they weren't awake for it?"

As the bear said, both students were out of it, neither responsive to the world around them. Or at least that was the case until one of them came around. With a beep like a laptop starting up, Kiibo awoke.

"Ah! System checks say I'm back to form. Thank you, Iruma-san!" the robot announced. It was a moment before he looked around the room, and realized something was amiss. "How did I get here?"

"You were asleep or something," Akamatsu explained. "The cubs brought you here since... well... Gonta-kun's..."

"Wait! Please don't tell me...!" Kiibo exclaimed.

"He's dead," Momota finished.

"No... no... that cannot be... Angie-san! You said God was watching over us..." Kiibo said to the artist, in a state of great confusion.

"Angie thought so too," Angie responded, equally baffled. "Angie doesn't know what happened. Gonta shouldn't have died. Angie doesn't understand."

Kiibo was thunderstruck, but found his footing. "We... we must do something about this! We cannot allow the culprit in this case to escape!"

"That's great and all, Kii-boy, but shouldn't you worry about your ladyfriend first?" Ouma countered.

Kiibo turned to see the unaware Iruma lying on the ground. He placed his arms on her shoulders. "Iruma-san! Are you okay?" He began to shake her. "Say something! Are you alright?"

Her voice rose up faintly, and her eyes began to flicker open. "Ugh... lower..."

"She's alright," Harukawa assessed.

Akamatsu heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness."

"Iruma-san!" Kiibo exclaimed. "What happened?"

The inventor slowly came to and rubbed her forehead in confusion. "Ugghhh... I... I was about to start the maintenance check and I just... blacked out. Don't know what happened. Wait, how'd I get here?"

"Bad news I'm afraid," Kiibo responded. "Gonta-kun... he's dead."

"What?! He's... who's the asshole?!"

"That's what you kids are supposed to find out!" Monokuma answered, taking the reins once more. "And now that you're all here, might I present the Monokuma File!"

With the Monokuma File distributed, Monokuma prepared to take his leave.

"Alright then, kiddos! I've got a trial site to prepare. Better bring your A-game!"

The black and white bear disappeared, leaving his children behind.

Monodam turned to his two brothers. "THE TRIAL WILL BEGIN SOON. WE WILL GET A-LONG BETTER ONCE THE TRIAL IS O-VER."

The green bear quickly vanished like his father.

"What do we do?!" Monokid exclaimed. "He's gonna kill one of us again! You're the smart one, Monosuke, think of something!"

Monosuke took on a somber visage. "There's only one thing I can do. I'm gonna take the hit."

"What?!" his brother replied in shock.

"If I take the hit, it'll keep Monodam distracted enough for you to club him with your guitar. I'm not strong enough to take 'im out, but you are."

"HELL YEAH! Wait... no! You're my brother! After everything that's happened..."

"I know," Monosuke offered, his eyes filled with something resembling determination. "But we can't take this lying down! Not after Monotaro and Monofunny! I'll antagonize 'im to make sure he goes after me. You'll know when the time is right."

"Ok... let's show Monodam just how useless he really is!" Monokid proclaimed.

"BYE-KUMA!" the two shouted as they went their own way.

"This family drama's getting on my nerves..." Yumeno lamented.

"Whatever's going on with them, we can't let it distract us," Akamatsu declared. "We need to figure out what happened to Gonta-kun!"

Saihara began to read the Monokuma File for the group.

"The victim was the Ultimate Entomologist, Gonta Gokuhara. He was found dead in the Ultimate Maid's Research Lab. The time of death was around 12:30 P.M. The cause of death is unclear, though there are no visible injuries on the body."

"If we're splitting up, I call dibs on Saihara-chan!" Ouma shouted.

The members of the Fitness Club, Saihara included, all turned to Ouma with baffled expressions on their faces.

"What? Wouldn't you prefer that someone's looking after me instead of me doing whatever I want?" the dictator inquired.

The detective ultimately relented. "Fine. I'll go with you. Akamatsu-san, can you investigate the crime scene? And Kaito, you talk to the others, okay?"

Akamatsu nodded. "Sounds good."

"You got it, Shuuichi!" Momota replied, giving a thumbs up.

"I'll help Momota, if that's okay with everyone," Harukawa added.

"Oh? Warming up to me, Harumaki?" Momota asked with a bit of a smug grin.

"Hardly. I just want to make sure you don't collapse again," Harukawa explained.

"I'll take it!" the astronaut accepted.

With individual plans in mind, the various students split up to investigate the relevant aspects of the crime.

"Alright, let's see what we've got here."

Akamatsu's monologue was pointless to an outside observer, though it was certainly helpful to her. The sound of her own voice was a welcome distraction from the harsh reality of Gonta's demise. She would hardly consider herself a narcissist, mind you. Rather, anything that could shake her away from the horrifying fact before her was welcome.

All the same, there was no denying it. Gonta was gone, and he was not coming back. The still form of the large boy was a very good indicator of that.

"It doesn't make sense," Akamatsu commented. "The broken plates and the overturned table make it look like there was some kind of struggle, but there aren't any wounds on him. For that matter, who could really take Gonta in a fight?"

Much like last time, Monokuma had taken it upon himself to give the students a handicap, hiding a key aspect of the case. Last time the time of death was less of a factor than Akamatsu might have thought, though it would have cleared things up for Yumeno very quickly. Perhaps the method of murder was the same way here. One student had a perfect understanding of how things happened, they would just need that missing detail.

"Is there any way I can be of assistance?"

Akamatsu turned around to see Toujou standing over her.

"I think you've told me everything you know, right?" Akamatsu asked.

"Well, yes, but..."

"But..."

"There's a question that's bothering me," Toujou revealed.

"What is it?"

"Why did Gonta-kun come to my lab to begin with?" the maid wondered aloud. "We had no pre-arranged meeting, no cause for him to visit. Why did he arrive here and drop dead?"

"And he was alive when you fell unconscious?" Akamatsu confirmed.

"As I said, I do not know. My most recent memory is of the door opening and my fainting spell," Toujou recalled.

"Is that a normal thing for you, by any chance?"

"Not at all," the silver-haired girl responded.

"Maybe you were just exhausted from overworking yourself," the pianist theorized.

"That has never been a problem in the past, furthermore my last task before my blackout was hardly stressful," Toujou countered.

"What was it?" Akamatsu inquired.

"I was preparing tea. Ouma-kun likes midday tea, and I feel it appropriate to oblige him," Toujou explained.

"So you were making tea, and then, out of nowhere, you were out like a light?" the blonde summarized.

"That appears to be the case."

Akamatsu pondered this. Toujou's story was certainly odd, but it didn't seem like she was deliberately hiding something.

If you were unfamiliar with the way Iruma kept her lab, you would likely never suspect anything had transpired during the inventor's blackout. Iruma, however, was intimately acquainted with the way she liked to keep her lab, and was almost in a state of panic.

"The fucker moved my stuff! Where do they get off?!"

While it seemed to be organized, and rather well-organized at that, Iruma could see every hair out of place in her workshop. Though it might have been more appropriate to say every hair that was now in place.

"I work in organized chaos! Don't glare, that's a thing!" she spat to her two visitors. "I'm gonna have to spend a whole day trying to figure out all the shit they messed with."

Said visitors were the duo of Harukawa and Momota. Momota, for his part, seemed genuinely concerned about what happened in the lab. Harukawa was barely above a disaffected scowl, showcasing her ability to make it perfectly clear how little she truly cared for people's petty concerns in the face of imminent death.

"If we can get on track here," Harukawa chimed in. "When exactly did you pass out?"

Iruma scratched her head in contemplation. "Ugh... I wasn't looking at a clock but... it was just after Kiibo went into sleep mode. He said that'd be 45 minutes."

"The body discovery announcement was at around 12:45," Momota recalled, "and Kiibo didn't wake up until closer to 12:50. If he really was asleep, he has a pretty solid alibi."

"Assuming we can take him at his word," Harukawa noted.

"Well, he was out when I blacked out," Iruma shared, "I was looking right at him, so I don't think he was faking."

"What bugs me is he said that he was running right when he woke up," Momota pointed out. "If you didn't do anything to him, then who did?"

Iruma gulped. "Someone did stuff to him while he was unconscious?"

"Weren't you going to do that?" Harukawa asked.

"Well, yeah, but that's like a doctor or something," the inventor said, panic clear in her voice, "If they did stuff to him, you don't think they did stuff to me do you?"

"I highly doubt that," the faux-caretaker claimed, her tone flat as a pancake.

As to be expected, this did nothing to reassure Iruma. "I gotta get to the bathroom! Stuff I gotta check!"

As the inventor bolted out of the room, the two investigators turned their heads to follow her path, equally dumbfounded by what had just transpired.

Momota took it upon himself to ask the lingering question. "Do I want to know what she just meant?"

"I know I don't," Harukawa replied.

"So whaddaya think, Harumaki? Do we believe her?" Momota wondered.

"I wouldn't be sure. I don't think anyone else here could have done maintenance on Kiibo. And she could easily be lying about how she keeps her lab," the red-eyed girl explained.

"Yeah, I guess, but I don't know," Momota countered. "She doesn't really get anything out of lying about this. Wouldn't it be easier to just say that she was doing maintenance the whole time?"

"Iruma is one of the many people here I've given up trying to understand," Harukawa stated, rather plainly.

"Who haven't you given up on trying to understand?" the astronaut inquired.

Harukawa considered this for a moment, realizing she wasn't going to be able to get out of answering. "Hoshi, I suppose. He's pretty cut and dry. Saihara's straightforward enough. ...I'm kind of blanking beyond that."

"So you don't want to understand me?" Momota asked, feigning indignation. "I'm hurt."

"I choose to write off your stranger quirks as part of you being an idiot," Harukawa made clear. "That pretty much covers it."

"Hey, I promise you I'm more than I let on," Momota defended. "When the chips are down, that's when I really shine."

"The 'chips have been down' twice now," the twin-tailed girl shot back. "The first time you did next to nothing, and the second time you spent a good while defending the culprit, and lying to protect someone you knew nothing about."

Momota offered a smirk. "You're welcome, by the way."

Harukawa's eyes narrowed. "I didn't ask for your help."

"Then why'd you wanna tag along with me?"

"Like I said, I don't want you collapsing."

"So you're worried about me?" Momota joked. "I'm touched."

"Do you want me to kill you?"

Harukawa's voice caught in her throat. It had been so long since she let that phrase slip, that it had finally broken through and found the light of day. She had done all she could to conceal her true self from her class, and now, a simple slip of the tongue had brought out her killing intent. It went hand-in-hand with the expression, even if it was traditionally said in jest.

Momota's stunned look was doing nothing to reassure her. "Geez..."

Here it came. The accusations. The doubts. The underlying suspicion. The judgment. Harukawa steeled herself for how Momota would respond to this verbal unveiling.

"Harumaki... you must really put the fear of God into those kids!"

Wait, what?

"Seriously, I thought you weren't kidding for a second there!"

The astronaut was grinning ear to ear, seemingly having taken the question in stride. Without even Harukawa's attempt to brush the inquiry off as a joke, Momota had taken it as such.

She needed to capitalize on this. "...right. It can be a useful trick. Kids, they're... rambunctious."

"Ain't it the truth..." Momota said with a sigh. "Welp, there's gotta be something else we can find. Maybe we should look somewhere else."

"Agreed."

In her mind, Harukawa had escaped that situation by the skin of her teeth. She was quite thankful that Momota was an idiot, after all.

Though that didn't explain the small hint of a smile that snuck its way to her lips.

"Over the river and through the woods, to Gonta-chan's lab we go!"

Ouma's singing did nothing to buoy Saihara's mood. Nor did the two's newfound presence in Gonta's lab. Saihara missed Gonta already, but even so, the inevitable downturn in the insect population of the school was more than welcome.

"Is there a reason you brought us here?" Saihara wondered.

"I figured you'd might want a break," Ouma explained. "Not having to put up with lying to the Art Club, or pretending you don't feel nervous around your actual friends."

"Nervous?"

"Of course! You're a bundle of nerves, you always are," the dictator proclaimed. "You pretend you're okay around Momota-chan, when you don't know if you're ready for a friendship that means anything. You pretend you trust Harukawa-chan, when we both know you're still suspicious. And of course, you pretend you're not head-over-heels for Akamatsu-chan. It's fun to watch you squirm, but you deserve time off."

"Just because I'm not great at social stuff doesn't mean... well..." Saihara trailed off, searching for his point. "They're still my friends!"

"But aren't you better in this kind of situation?" Ouma taunted. "Stuck with someone you know you can't trust? Trying to solve a mystery where you have to stand alone? It's easier that way."

Saihara narrowed his gaze, though ultimately turned away. "This... you're trying to waste my time. I should just..."

"Saihara-chan!"

The detective turned back to look at Ouma, who was carrying some sort of jar.

"Is that a honey pot?" Saihara inquired.

"Mm-hmm. About half-full," Ouma confirmed.

"But Gonta-kun brought Toujou-san a fresh batch just yesterday," the detective recounted, thrown by this discovery. "I'm no beekeeper, but I think it takes longer than that to make honey."

"Well, we could check the hives," Ouma suggested.

The two boys looked to the ceiling where the hives hung. A sense of dread quickly overtook the both of them.

Saihara gulped. "I... don't think that's a good idea."

"Yeah, forget I said that," the shorter boy hedged.

The two backed out of the room slowly, hoping to avoid alerting any of the arthropods.

Angie was hard at work in her own lab. She knew she wasn't much of an investigator, so she fell back on what she did know, and that was art. Art was the way God spoke to her. She conjured the images and figures God envisioned into physical form and delivered them unto the world at large. And with the trial coming up, she knew she needed to be in a proper mindset.

And even so, she was interrupted.

She sighed, but ultimately opened the door to see that it was Kiibo.

"Oh, Kiibo! Like, did you need something?"

The robot walked in, his expression somewhat dour. "Just making sure you're okay. You were probably closer to Gonta-kun than any of us, after all."

"Yeah..." Angie lamented. "Angie was trying to take her mind off it by finishing that painting of the club. Angie thinks Gonta would've wanted that."

Kiibo nodded. "I agree. Though I am curious, how do you intend to aid in the investigation by doing this?"

The artist turned to look away from her friend. "Angie doesn't think she'll be able to help. The best thing she can do is not let her sadness show."

Kiibo placed a hand on her shoulder. "We will be fine. We will figure this out, I promise."

Angie smiled. "Thanks. Maybe I should make some more paint..."

*BING-BONG, BING-BONG*

"Attention all students! Investigation time is over, trial time is long overdue! Better head to the fountain if you know what's good for you!"

As the nearby monitors shut down, Angie groaned. "Like, for reals?! Angie's still not done! Ugh, whatever. Let's get going."

"Affirmative."

As Angie took her leave, Kiibo stayed for a moment. The mechanical student gazed upon the incomplete portrait and considered it briefly. A beeping sound went off in his head, signaling that what he had set out to do was complete.

"As I thought," he said to no one.

The students gathered in the elevator as they made their way to the trial room. The fitness club had exchanged information, what little of it they had, as they steeled themselves for yet another exercise in emotional exhaustion.

"There's still so much I don't understand," Akamatsu thought, "Why did Iruma-san and Toujou-san pass out? Did the culprit do that? And if they did, how did they get to both of them so quickly? All I can be sure of is this: Gonta-kun didn't deserve to die. Whoever did this needs to be brought to justice. I don't know what path will lead us to the truth, and I don't know what sort of truth we'll find. But I can't hold back. I need to face whatever awaits for us."

"I need to face... this Class Trial!"

A/N: Woo! Look who's finally back! Yeah, I have no excuse for my procrastination. But I'm sure you're all glad to hear from me again!

...anybody?