"Shuuichi? You weren't really part of the Art Club? You were just trying to trick us?"
Angie's words left Saihara a stuttering mess. He was nowhere near prepared to watch his charade be shattered so easily. "I... a-all I was trying to do..."
"Shuuichi just wanted to make sure you didn't do anything crazy, that's all!" Momota reassured.
Not that this calmed Angie down. "You were in on it, weren't you, Momota? You and your whole club!"
Akamatsu shirked away from the conversation, though Harukawa stood defiant.
Iruma, watching this all unfold, chuckled. "Feh. Who would've guessed that Shyhara over here played for both teams?"
"C-can you not say it like that?!" Saihara exclaimed, his cheeks pink as the inventor's outfit.
Ouma pounced on the detective's frustration. "Ooh! Could it be that that metaphor was right on the money?"
"Wait..." Iruma hedged, "For real?"
"Please..." Saihara said, frantically trying to catch his breath, "can we just... give me a moment here?"
Iruma quickly attempted to backpedal. "Hey, it's no big deal if you do, I was just..."
"The big deal here is that Angie had two liars in her club disgracing and ignoring the word of God! Angie thought she could trust you two!" Angie countered.
"Angie-san, please calm down!" Kiibo requested, "Saihara-kun probably has a reasonable explanation."
"He wants to get into Akamatsu-chan's pants and thought this would impress her," Ouma added.
This time it was Akamatsu's turn to be embarassed. "Ouma-kun!"
Saihara was in a state of shock. He could feel his world crumbling around him. "I... there's... the case..."
The lack of trust. The judgment for his sexuality. The calling out of his failings. The people he was closest to being untrustworthy themselves. The pressure to solve the case. All of this and more flooded Saihara's mind all at once.
"I... *huff* I... *huff* I just... *huff*..."
His breath was growing ragged, his palms sweating, his joints locking up. The trial ground was beginning to resemble an empty void with voices all around him. Each voice directed at him, offering questions, complaints, concerns, but all blending together into some sort of cacophony that he could not process. He began to sink into himself, trying to find some other way to perceive what was going on. To an outside observer, all they could see was the image of the detective's legs giving out from under him, barely keeping himself propped up by grabbing at his podium. Shaky, panting breaths were all that escaped his mouth.
"Shuuichi!" Momota shouted. The astronaut grabbed his best friend's shoulder, trying to help him to his feet. However, Saihara was non-responsive. He had entered some sort of a waking coma, no longer reacting to external stimuli.
"Saihara-kun..." Akamatsu whispered.
"What happened to him?" Yumeno wondered.
"I've seen it in jail a few times," Hoshi recounted, "Sometimes stress just builds up so much that a guy can't take it and he just... snaps."
"Are you saying this is some kind of... anxiety attack?" Harukawa asked.
"Could be..." the former convict theorized, "Either way, it's gonna be a while before we hear from him again."
"You guys keep talking about the case," Momota requested, "I'll try to bring him 'round."
"Be careful," Harukawa warned, "if he wants space instead, you give it to him right away."
"Don't worry," the astronaut reassured, "I'll take good care of him."
"Okay, you do that," Akamatsu replied. With that matter settled, her focus turned to Angie. "Angie-san, I know you're upset. But can you please wait until after the trial for us to talk about this?"
The artist clapped her hands together in prayer, and closed her eyes. After a moment of silence, she finally spoke, "God feels that patience is a virtue. I should keep my emotions in check. For the sake of everyone."
Kiibo nodded. "Yes. God tells me the same thing. We must remain focused on the case."
With the class back on topic, Harukawa took the lead. "The six members of the Art Club, myself, and Hoshi have all used the confessional. That leaves four people who we aren't sure about."
"I didn't use it," Akamatsu commented.
"Me neither, I ain't stepping in that nonsense," Iruma agreed.
"I also refrained," Toujou shared.
"I didn't either," Momota claimed, taking his focus off of Saihara briefly. "And before any of you accuse Shuuichi of anything, he and I were in the casino when Gonta died, so we have alibis, too."
"We can cross them off the list," Akamatsu asserted, "And with that in mind, we should probably cross off Kiibo too, since I think we're all in agreement about him being unconscious."
"I can agree to that," Harukawa said with a nod.
Kiibo thought this over. "If we then limit ourselves to those who have used the confessional, it leaves six suspects. Angie-san, Harukawa-san, Yumeno-san, Ouma-kun, Hoshi-kun, and Gonta-kun himself."
"I... don't think it was a suicide," Yumeno noted.
"Guy couldn't kill an ant, much less himself," Iruma snarked.
"Maybe he tried to kill Toujou, the culprit saw him and they tried to stop it?" Hoshi theorized.
"Please," Iruma scoffed, "Bug Boy's too much of a dainty flower child to kill somebody."
"And if the culprit fought against him, why are there no external wounds on Gonta-kun's body?" Toujou questioned.
"Just a suggestion," Hoshi defended.
"That's the weirdest part though," Akamatsu chimed in, "We don't even know how he died. There was a struggle, we know that. But he had no injuries, and we didn't find anything at the crime scene that looked like a murder weapon."
"So are you saying he did fight with the culprit?" Angie asked.
"I... I don't know," the pianist admitted.
"We're all assuming Gonta-chan ever even saw who killed him," Ouma noted, "What if he never knew who his murderer was?"
"But that doesn't seem possible with the struggle," Kiibo pointed out, "How else did Toujou-san's lab fall into disarray if he didn't face his killer head-on?"
"But that doesn't make sense either," Hoshi countered, "Now that I think about it, none of us would really stand a chance if we had to fight Gonta, so there couldn't have been a fight."
"We're caught in a spiral or something," Yumeno complained, "There had a to be a fight, but there couldn't have been a fight. Which is it?"
Akamatsu steeled herself. It was do-or-die time. The decision she made now would determine the path the rest of the case would take. In these moments, she traditionally put her trust in Saihara's reasoning, but that wasn't an option here.
Saihara's panting had ceased, but he still wasn't moving from his crouched state, and he wasn't saying anything about the proceedings.
With this, Akamatsu took a breath. With everything that had happened up to this point in mind, she made her call, "I... want to say... there wasn't a fight."
Naturally, the class had their doubts.
"If there was no fight, how do we explain my lab being thrown into disarray?" Toujou inquired.
The blonde had no choice but to think on her feet. Perhaps if she was lucky, she would be able to pull some sort of chain of reasoning together. She considered the various possibilities, and summoned an idea to the forefront of her mind. "Maybe... that happened after he was dead? The culprit messed with the crime scene. That might be why we didn't find a murder weapon."
"But would the culprit have had the time to do that?" Hoshi wondered. "We found Gonta's body not fifteen minutes after he died. The culprit would have to rough the place up and split, and not wake up Toujou while they were at it."
"Right... well..." Akamatsu was floundering. If she couldn't string together an answer, she risked losing the ears of her fellow classmates. "On second thought... what if Gonta roughed everything up on his own?"
"So after putting Maid-to-Order to bed," Iruma reasoned, "he made a mess of her lab, and just... croaked?"
"No... I'm sure there was a killer," Akamatsu thought aloud.
"But if there was a killer, what were they doing while Gonta-kun threw Toujou-san's lab into disarray?" Kiibo asked.
Every question just raised another question.
Who made a mess of the lab?
"Gonta," Akamatsu thought.
What was the culprit doing while he did?
"Nothing."
Why didn't the culprit react?
"Because... they... didn't know he was doing that...?"
Why not?
"Because...the culprit never saw Gonta."
How is this possible?
"Because the whole thing was a trap."
"It was all a big set-up!" Akamatsu announced.
The class was stunned into silence by Akamatsu's bold statement. She took this in stride, however, as she began to share her reasoning.
"It's possible to murder someone without being in the room," the blonde pointed out, "We all know that by now."
Ouma gave Akamatsu a knowing smirk, indulging in a moment of shared recollection of the two's efforts.
"Maybe there was something set up in Toujou-san's lab that would kill somebody, and Gonta-kun stumbled into it when he walked in," Akamatsu theorized, "That way, the time frame becomes a non-issue, and it explains how it looks like there was a fight, but there also wasn't."
"If that's true," Harukawa added, "it's possible that Toujou falling unconscious was also part of the trap, but Gonta's interference somehow kept it from working."
Angie didn't buy it, however, "So, wait... the culprit set a trap? But... like... where's the trap?"
"Hmm?" Akamatsu intoned.
"Well, there's no mechanisms or anything," Angie reminded them, "And if the culprit just removed them, how did they hide them in Kirumi's lab without her noticing them?"
"She has a point," Toujou concurred, "Before I fainted, I didn't notice anything odd in my room."
"Maybe the trap was invisible or something?" Yumeno guessed.
"Setting up an invisible trap sounds like the work of a magician to me," Ouma shot back.
"I'm not a magician!" Yumeno protested, "I'm a mage! I use real magic, not tricks!"
Akamatsu groaned. She had come so far, and the answer seemed to be tantalizingly close now. But what was she missing? "Who's ever heard of an invisible trap before?" she lamented.
Momota was getting tired of this circular train of logic, his eye back on his friend. If anyone could help them now, it was Saihara, but he still wasn't responding. The detective seemed to be getting better, but Momota knew he had to do something to speed the process along. Granted, he wasn't familiar with the ins-and-outs of an anxiety attack, but he was going to give it his level best.
His voice barely above a whisper, to avoid alerting the others, Momota addressed his friend, "Hey, buddy... are you in there? Just... nod if you can hear me, okay?"
Saihara took a moment before silently nodding.
"Good, good. Okay... just.. stay calm. We're gonna get you through this. Just... keep focused on me right now, okay?"
Saihara briefly turned his head, his eyes glassy, but they quickly locked onto the face of his friend.
"Alright. Are you... scared?"
He shook his head.
"Worried?"
He nodded.
"Can you tell me what you're worried about?"
A few short breaths escaped the black-haired boy's mouth as he barely muttered an answer, "I messed up."
"What do you mean?"
"Everyone hates me."
"I don't think so."
"They don't trust me."
"I trust you."
"I can't figure out the case."
"Why not?"
"I'm not good enough."
"Don't give me that, you're great at this!" Momota cheered.
"No... I... I should be better. I should know..."
"I know that you've got what it takes," the astronaut countered, "You've proven you can do it before. Is there something different this time?"
"I... I..."
"You've got me on your side. Just like always," Momota reminded him, "No matter what, you're my assistant. That means if someone's mad or disappointed, that's aimed at me, not you. I believe in you. We all do. And you've earned that."
Saihara took a few more shaky breaths before he started to stand.
"You gonna be okay?" Momota asked.
"I'll... I'll be better once this is over," Saihara claimed.
"We might need your help to end it," the astronaut admitted.
Saihara took one last cleansing breath before he once again could feel the ground beneath his feet. "I'll end this. I have to. Everyone!"
The detective's return to form was quickly recognized by the rest of the group. Though they wanted to start questioning him, his words quickly began to flow.
"In regards to the invisible trap idea, I do think that that's possible," he asserted, "To be more precise, I think we should consider the idea that Gonta-kun was poisoned."
"Poison?" Akamatsu questioned.
"If there was a poison-based trap," Harukawa considered, "then it's possible that whatever poisoned Gonta knocked Toujou out, too. And it might explain why he roughed up the lab, he was reacting violently to the toxin."
"I still find it hard to believe someone could get poison in my lab without my knowledge," Toujou argued.
"No. There's a way that the poison could get into your lab," Saihara countered. "When you consider how the poison was delivered, how it affected you as opposed to Gonta-kun, why he was in your lab to begin with, who had access to poisonous substances, and who the poison was really meant to kill, everything adds up perfectly."
"Saihara-kun..." Akamatsu replied in awe, "It sounds like..."
"I think..." the detective announced, "I think I know who did it."
SELECT A SUSPECT
A/N: Look alive, people. There's cookies at stake here.
