ACT 3: IN THE GRIP OF DESPAIR
Chapter 7: Investigation (part 1)
Day 12
Tartarus Keep
7:30
Resident Area
The unholy mess in front of me was matched by the turmoil in my mind. Once again, Monokuma had beaten us in the Mutual Killing Game. Once again, we thought we had him where we wanted, only for him to make an unexpected comeback.
Seeing the rubble that was once the main hall, I felt more hopeless than ever. This was an act of vile betrayal. Someone in the group had tricked us into opening Pandora's Box by forging Monokuma's instruction. It was something we should have seen through, but our fear and fatigue had gotten the better of us. We thought we had sharpened our alertness with all the bonding, training, and strict adherence to the rules set up by Rin. All of those were for naught, however, as we had created other openings in the process, specifically a sense of security believing that the current motive could not have influenced anyone into committing the ultimate crime.
The price was steep. This was undeniably the most devastating murder we had witnessed. Eliza was dead, blown to bits in a spectacular fashion. And Tatsuya was probably not long for this world. Even had Inori not been executed, I sincerely doubted we had the equipment, facilities, and skills to preserve him.
However, our fight was far from over. We still needed to survive and to bring the mastermind to justice.
And for those to happen, we must solve the mystery behind the bombing and make sure the perpetrator be brought to light. It didn't matter if no execution might be brought upon them - justice must be served one way or another.
"Why did this happen?" Minako wailed as she laid Tatsuya on the bed in his room. We had bandaged up the poor fellow to stem external bleeding, but the damage already done to his organ was catastrophic. "What have Eliza and Tatsuya done to deserve this?"
"I don't want to play this game anymore," Inu cried as he buried his face into my chest.
With Fitzgerald absent due to earlier injuries, there were only ten of us left now, about to be nine. It was pitiful considering there were sixteen of us less than two weeks ago.
"Enough, both of you," Rin demanded. "Monokuma gives us additional time, but that is no reason for slacking. We need to find the culprit behind this. And to do that, we need cool heads."
"How could you be so nonchalant?" Minako complained. "Our friends just died here..."
"And we will join them in the grave soon enough if we don't solve this mystery," said Rin. "I am mourning their passing as well just as I have mourned the deaths of my parents and many of my comrades on the field. Only I do so quietly."
There was a long pause as we took in Rin's words. From her confession during the second trial, I knew she was no stranger to losses. It appeared she had learned to cope with it similar to how I had learned to move on from Rebecca's grisly demise. In this regard, she had my grim admiration. I also
"Rin is right," said Hokuto. He was visibly distraught from the experience, though not as much as during the second motive where he saw Eliza devouring on Ashley's corpse at the end. I remembered he was quite close to Tatsuya. The Ultimate Delivery Boy was the only person who defended Hokuto's crazy escape plots. "It's disheartening for sure. Eliza and Tatsuya do not deserve this. But we must move on."
"We have to win this," Yume reiterated, "otherwise, their deaths will be in vain."
"Yeah," Kai stammered. Her attempt to join in with the mood fell flat. "What you guys said."
"What if it is better to just stop?" asked Minako skeptically. As with the conclusion of the second trial, the Ultimate Herbalist was the last to be convinced. "To end your suffering in death." Her fatalistic idea didn't strike much common ground with the others, Inu included.
"We've come a long way," I added. "It's a shame that it has to end here. I know it's really tough, but seeing this makes me want to win more than ever. Victory with the rest of my friends, that is." I recalled I was never a team player back in primary and middle schools, but my time spent in the Gadna had taught me the value of togetherness. Now was the perfect opportunity to apply what I had learned there.
"True," Yume agreed. "The more difficult the journey, the more satisfying it is to get to the end."
"Well said," Hijiri nodded, looking more perturbed than usual. "I have no intention to die here. Whoever is behind Monokuma must not win."
"We cannot concede here," El Viento voiced. "Upon my luchador honor, I swear I will not let Monokuma have his way, even if I have to die for that."
"Is there even any hope left, though?" asked Minako.
"There is," said Rin. "We will beat this trial. And when Fitzgerald returns, he will tell us how to beat Monokuma's bodyguards."
"While the girl Hokuto rescued shed some light on the dungeon that might give us a way out," I continued.
"I have a secret weapon," said El Viento confidently. "I won't use it just yet. But trust me, when the time comes, I will prove my worth to you all." This came as a surprise. I didn't realize the Ultimate Luchador would be the one to have an unseen advantage, seeing how she had futilely attempted to attack Monokuma twice already. Hearing that from her boosted my diminished confidence by a great margin.
"We still need Fitzgerald and that girl to come back for everything to click together," said Kai. "Then, we will find our way to escape."
"It's as if the cosmos will be soon aligned," Yume remarked. "Then, we can work our magic."
"Sound like hopeful hogwash to me," said Hijiri skeptically. "You're all coming up with best-case scenarios. I do not doubt Fitzgerald-san, but what if that girl isn't as helpful as you thought? And what about El Viento-san? I do not mean it as an insult, but she is a musclehead. What has she come up with that has been useful to us? Hasn't Hokuto dragged us into enough trouble already?"
"It's really hard to convince you, isn't it?" Hokuto moaned.
"I am merely being realistic," Hijiri hissed.
"Well, being realistic doesn't help at all," Rin scolded her. "If you have nothing productive to add, then shut the hell up." Hijiri looked away in disgust.
"Guys, this is not the time to bicker among ourselves," Yume repeated for what seemed to be the hundredth time.
"I understand why this senorita isn't impressed," said El Viento calmly, gazing at Hijri who pouted. "I, too, admit my shortcoming so far. But I am confident this time will be different. Please, trust me on this."
"Let's discuss how to get out AFTER we solve the bombing mystery, can we?" said Yume.
"Yes," Inu agreed, finally speaking up. "We should focus on the immediate problem."
"No matter how small our chances might be, let's not give up," I said to my friends. "For sake of those who had fallen, and those who live still, let's get this sordid business over with."
8:00
Main Hall
INVESTIGATION STARTS!
This was going to be the most difficult case yet. Our numbers had been cut down to half and there were more places to investigate than ever. Plus, Minako was assigned to take care of Tatsuya in the meantime, not that she had any intention of helping at this point. Her procrastination and sour attitude were unavailing, yet I could not help but understand why she would feel and act that way.
Luckily, Monokuma gave us extra time, otherwise, I would have considered it an impossible undertaking.
As usual, I took out my E-handbook to see the information Monokuma had left for us.
Monokuma File #1
The murdered victim is Elizabeth "Eliza" Piket the Ultimate Tinkerer.
Her body was obliterated by an explosion in the main hall during breakfast.
The cause of the explosion is a bomb carefully hidden beneath one of the tables.
This merely confirmed what we had known so far rather than providing any new insight that might help us catch the culprit. As much as I wished Monokuma had been behind the bombing, my rational thoughts deem such an idea ludicrous. It wasn't like him to kill us directly. Hell, he didn't kill either El Viento or Hokuto despite both of them breaking the rule.
The shattered main hall was a good place to start, considering everything from the bait to the explosion had taken place here.
"What an unholy mess," Hijiri snorted. She noticed blood leaking from the debris and looked away in disgust. "How are we going to sort through this?"
"I live in a mine," said Hokuto coolly. "I've seen worse."
"There are many other places to search," I cut in before this could turn into an argument like eighty-percent dialogues involving Hokuto and Hijiri so far. "Hijiri, why don't you go to the library and archive while we rumble through this?"
The Ultimate Geisha stopped for a moment as if pondering if I was trying to help her. Then, she nodded. "Right. The task upon us is like the mountain. But if we can take it apart one piece at a time, maybe we can yet succeed."
Kai, Hijiri, Hokuto, and Inu headed out while the rest, myself included, began digging through the pile of debris in the main hall. There were only seven of us now, so splitting up was more important than ever.
The main hall had been trashed during the second trial where a squabble took place between Minako and El Viento. Yet, it looked even worse now. There was a crater on the floor signifying the center of the blast, though not deep enough to penetrate to the floor underneath. Several tables were overturned, laying in miserable heaps. Smoke and dust filled the air. The food that was supposed to be our breakfast was splattered all over the place: cookies, bread, and some braised pork from what I could see. Due to the urgency of the situation, we all decided to eat AFTER the trial. Eliza was no longer here to protest.
Given Monokuma's obsession with keeping this place in one piece, I doubted he enjoyed this sight even though his motivation had worked. We made good progress thanks to El Viento being an invaluable asset.
After several minutes, I finally came across the device that acted as the trigger, a malefic snare wrapped up in an innocent-looking Christmas-theme present box.
"Looks like I've found it," I said, holding out to the others. The mechanism of the trap itself was simple enough. It consisted of rubber strings tied to the weight placed on top of the detonator switch. When the box was closed and the lit wrapped down, the weight was held back. As soon as the ribbons on top of the box were untied, the weight was released, pressing against the detonator and triggering the explosion. "This is what triggered the booby trap."
The hard part was figuring out what consisted of the detonator itself and I was no expert in engineering. It did, however, looked like a modified remote control for a drone or a vehicle toy that looked as if it had been ripped open and stitched back up in a Frankenstein-ish manner. There were quite a few attached wires and protrusions that I could not even begin to grasp what they were doing there in the first place and just touching it made me feel as uncomfortable as a Lovecraftian character finding out the existence of the Old Gods.
"Is that the detonator?" asked Rin, examining closely. "The radio control is the base of it. I don't think I've seen it around. Have you?"
I racked my brain to recall the objects in the warehouse Akihiko and I worked together to arrange and take note of just in case they might be of any use. Nothing that resembled the device in front of me came to mind.
"No," I replied. "El Viento, what do you think of this?"
"This is the detonator alright," said El Viento. "Converted and corrupted form of a child's toy. How despicable."
"The switch sends a radio signal to the bomb, which probably caused it to explode," Rin continued. "There must have been a receiver attached to the bomb as well. Unfortunately, I don't think we can find or determine it at this state."
"Only the first part is correct," I cut in. "It's blown apart, and we don't have the time or the expertise to put the fragments of the bomb together. Just because we can't access it doesn't mean we can't determine or second-guess what it was." During the second trial, we were able to pinpoint Ashley's movements and ultimate fate with some accuracy despite her being dead and silent all the time. Knowing this, I was confident we could trace the detonator in the same way.
"Well said, Amelda," El Viento agreed. "There aren't many things that can receive and react to radio signals coming from this device. Which means we just need to pinpoint what it is and the vile villain will reveal themselves."
"That might be the truth," said Rin, pondering. "Think about it. We have not seen anything that could have made up the base of this device. But that's because we have only been looking at public spaces so far."
I knew what she was referring to. "You mean the device might have been part of the welcoming package Monokuma put into our room?" I asked. Sure enough, in addition to many identical sets of clothes so that he wouldn't have to remember all our human faces, the bear provided us with some items related to our talents within our room. Mine was pretty barren considering I worked mostly on a computer as the Ultimate Accountant, but Hijiri's room was well decorated in traditional Japanese style and Fitzgerald was allowed to carry a gun. I wondered what the insides of each person's room looked like.
"That is my theory," said Rin. "Unless we can find evidence of such device laying around in the castle before the culprit picking it up, we will need to assume it is part of room fitting. Private assets Monokuma gifted us with."
"Should we have a room check later on?" El Viento suggested. With the exception of Minako who could fall asleep anywhere and preferred being in the now-blocked botanical garden, our rooms were our personal sanctuaries and bastions of comfort. While I didn't oppose the idea - my talent being all about mental work, after all - I doubted all of the others would look forward to it. Then again, Rin did gain access to Hijiri's room following the first trial for some 'private sessions' which probably amounted to physical and mental torturing - we had allowed her to commit such atrocity out of the belief that Hijiri was the sole wronging party. "Would that be considered an intrusion?"
"Justice demands it," Rin declared. "If you have nothing to hide, then no reason to be afraid."
Truth Bullet #1
Booby trap
The bomb was triggered by a detonator attached to a present box. The opening of the box was what led to the explosion.
Truth Bullet #2
Detonator
The detonator was converted from a toy remote control. Such a device has not been seen anywhere in Tartarus Keep. It is suspected that somebody has it as part of their introduction package given my Monokuma.
Truth Bullet #3
The complexity of the murder
While the booby trap was easy to pull off, the killer must have the necessary technical knowledge to carry out their crime, which is extensive.
8:30
Storage
Finding evidence about the bomb would take some time considering the state of it. Despite its importance, Rin and El Viento would carry on without me for there was one particular place I wanted to check on and that was the warehouse where the tools used to construct the murder device might have been obtained.
Much to my disappointment, the charts which Akihiko and I clearly stated which items were available and their quantities were completely outdated. People had come and taken stuff from the warehouse without making any entry, not that there was any demand for them to do so. Unsurprisingly, the only entry on them was for the aspirin and ibuprofen I took to alleviate my drunken state following the drinking contest with Fitzgerald.
That party was mere five days ago, yet it felt as if an eternity had passed since then.
I look for any sign of missing items that could have been used to craft the explosive and the detonator. Sure enough, many items from the toolkit were absent. I knew this because the holes and hooks where they were supposed to be were empty. I could already guess the most likely holders were Hokuto, Eliza, and Ashley. With the latter two no longer around, Hokuto was the only person who I knew for sure could have the skills and knowledge to arm and plant the bomb. He was, after all, the one who repurposed a giant drill which almost ended up killing Minako. While I hated to suspect any of my friends, especially knowing Hokuto was devastated by Tatsuya's loss, I was ignorant to neither the capricious nature of humans nor the desperation that was sinking into our group.
I must allow compassions or sentimentalities to get in the way. If I was going to beat this game, I must be as hardened as the killer themselves.
As I searched high and low, I finally came across an interesting finding: a pillow on one of the shelves. The pillow looked just like the one in my room. It wasn't here before, as confirmed by both my memory and the chart Akihiko and I had made, and I doubted it could have grown legs and traveled here on its own. I turned the place inside out and my suspicion was confirmed as soon as I found a blanket stowed in one of the boxes of decoration, again identical to the one I had in my room and not on the compiled list. While the missing equipment came to me as no surprise, the additional items raised my eyebrow.
They pointed towards one thing: someone was sleeping here at some point. If it was indeed last night then it seemed Rin's method of confiscating our E-Handbook during the night didn't pay off. It seemed we didn't think about the logic through. The door separating the residential hallway and the main hall as well as the one to the warehouse could only be opened using the Electronic-ID that came with the E-handbook during Night-Time but was fully unlocked in the morning. And with the door to each of our rooms only required the Electronic-ID to open from the outside, anyone could have hidden in the warehouse for the night and then pretended during breakfast that they just walked in. The rules Rin came up with were to prevent more than one person from being outside during Night-Time, one of whom potentially being the killer than the other the slain. We had not taken into account the possibility of a booby trap, especially considering Ashley was already dead and El Viento even came up with an insane theory to accuse her during the first trial.
I saw no reason to rush to the conclusion that whoever these pillows and blankets belonged to was the killer, but they would be our main suspect. Certainly, the killer could have gone to the main hall earlier than everyone else and placed the present while planting up the bomb. Conversely, they could have stayed longer than everyone else and set up the crime scene just before Night-Time.
Further rumbling through the warehouse revealed the bedware wasn't the only thing that should not have been here. It appeared innocuous and, at first glance, I thought it was a medicine vial or an electrical device for esoteric purposes. However, my months of training in IDF youth camp paid off as I was able to identify the device and its sinister purpose. The tube was an unmistakably C4 package.
An explosive.
The bomb.
There were two more of it, bringing the number to three in total.
Seeing that they had already been disarmed, I carefully lifted one up and saw the writings on it. The notes indicated it belonged to the NAF, which I guessed was short for Novoselic Armed Forces, though a nearby stamp bearing symbol of Monokuma's face showed its current true owner. The existence of the C4 tubes might have lent some weight to Minako's argument that Monokuma was behind this for I had no idea how any one of us could have gotten hold of them in such quantity. This was neither here before nor something that could have been handcrafted. Still, the fact they were disarmed, unused, hidden away in the warehouse still baffled me.
Truth Bullet #5
Pillow and blanket in the warehouse
These items weren't here before. Evidence suggests someone was trying to evade the Night-Time rule by sleeping in the warehouse.
Truth Bullet #6
Disarmed C4
3 tubes of C4 were found in the warehouse, all neutralized.
I could not leave the C4 where they were. Just because they were defused didn't mean they couldn't go off - the chemical components that caused them to be combustible were still there. As someone who had deactivated dozens of mock explosives during my military training, I could tell whoever did this wasn't sure what they were doing and one of the tubes had its wires messily and perilously cut, albeit not going off as a result, yet. The one tampering with it must have come close to blowing themselves up in the process, which would have led to a completely different murder scenario, possibly far more desirable than what we had right now. The other two tubes appeared to have been handled cleaner as whoever was disarming them finally got the hang of it. After taking pictures of them as evidence, I put them in a plastic bag, exited the warehouse, and showed them to Rin and El Viento. Both were astounded by my finding.
After I urged them not to jump to any premature conclusion, Rin agreed to put the devices at a corner where we could stay away from should they have an active external trigger like the one used as the murder weapon that I failed to notice or decide that one explosion in the morning wasn't enough.
"El Viento and I will stay here for a while," Rin continued. "I would like you to go and check on the others. Take extra care when dealing with Hokuto." It sounded more like an order than a request, but I supposed her reasoning was sound.
"Sounds fair," I told her. "I shall be going then."
"We will need to gather everyone before the trial as well," said El Viento. "If not to extract accounts, then at least we should give Tatsuya a proper send-off. The poor amigo won't last much longer."
"I will inform them," I promised. While Tatsuya was drawing his last breaths, we too fought the battle of our lives.
9:30
Library
Hijiri was investigating the shelves by the time I arrived. She seemed to know what she was looking for as I noticed she paid close attention to the shelves containing books about engineering, particularly on explosives. As I now noticed, the section on military and warfare dominated a large portion of the library. Given what we knew about Nosovolic so far, including my own speculation that they must have a significant army to withstand both scrutiny from the old Yugoslavia as well as foreign invasions in the wake of its violent breakup, this was hardly surprising.
The Ultimate Geisha was startled when by my approach, nearly backing off. I gave her a gesture indicating I meant her no harm and she relaxed. I thought she should have already moved on from the incident between the two of us at this point. She might have been shaken up by the explosion and deaths, but I doubted that was the only reason.
"Have you found anything here?" I asked her.
Hijiri took a deep breath to calm herself. She didn't flinch when I moved closer nor did she break eye contact, suggesting she wasn't afraid of me in particular. I did not understand what had gotten into her. Considering the maximum number of victims had already been reached, it would have been inappropriate for me to make an attempt on her. Unless I was missing something, Hijiri was not the type to mourn the deaths of others, and neither Eliza nor Tatsuya had left that much impression on her to begin with.
Sometimes, I envied her compressed emotions and lack of feelings for others. Having moved on from those, I didn't think I could revert to my old self again just to ease away my anguish. That was not what I was going for, anyway.
"Perhaps," Hijiri nodded. "The books on English-language shelves are organized in alphabetic order. See? Some of them have been misplaced. Not by me, though. I always try my best to put them exactly where they were and I took them."
"So do I," I told her. "But I don't think all of us can be bothered with that. There isn't any librarian around here." Not anymore, that was. Akihiko would probably have frowned upon untidiness and disorganization in the library if he had still been around.
"Still, they might tell us what the others have been reading," said Hijiri.
"Are you sure?" I asked her. "The library has undergone episodes of devastation, first by Hokuto and then during the gassing. Do you think the books are still in the right places after those?"
"Monokuma cleaned the place up after the second trial," said Hijri. "I can attest to it that everything was where they were supposed to be at that point in time."
I admitted her logic was sound. Monokuma was quite diligent in handling the Mutual Killing Game, after all. "How many books were incorrectly placed?" I asked.
"A dozen," said Hijiri. "Two of them caught my interest." She took down two titles and presented them to me. "Do you think the killer might have learned from these?"
The two books she showed me contained the titles that raised my eyebrows: Guide on Handling Bombs, Explosives, and IEDs and Armory of Novoselic Armed Forces Encyclopedia. They were consistent with what I found in the warehouse.
"Too good to be coincidence," I conceded.
After explaining to Hijiri about my discovery of the C4 charges, I suggested having a quick look at the books to see what knowledge the killer could have derived from them. Sure enough, the knowledge these books provided was extensive and provided in great detail accompanied by illustrations and examples, potentially allowing any civilian to become a terrorist, or, hopefully, a bomb-defusing expert. Rather than recreational readings or even guidebooks, these might have actually been the military instruction manual of the Novoselic Armed Force under different covers. On one of the marked pages, I even saw the exact same device in the encyclopedia as the one in the warehouse, including explanations on its composition, usage, handling, and even preferred targets. All in all, they were definitely not something I would expect on a shelf in a library where, on the other side, I could find copies of my favorite Superboy comics. I wondered what was the life of nobles and commoners in Novoselic be like if the whole country, even in times of peace, was already geared up for potential wars.
"Thus the truth unfolds," said Hijiri poetically. "Empowered with means and skills, the villain's blade drew."
"This is the murder weapon alright," I pointed at the picture of the bomb I recovered from the warehouse. "Pretty standard stuff and easy to use, according to the book."
"Where did they find it, though?" Hijiri questioned. "The bomb, I mean. Surely, not even Yume can conjure it out of pictures in books."
"That's something we still need to find out," I said. "But this certainly helps a lot. We now know that the killer must have done a lot of research into this."
"They are diligent for sure," Hijiri admitted. "Let's hope they're not so to the point they can elude us."
"Whichever the case, you did great," I said, smiling at her. "Thanks for that."
Hijiri flushed for a moment at my compliment before regaining her cold attitude. "This untidiness irks me almost as much as the villain's motivation in this. I'm glad they are now linked together so I can put all my resentment into one basket."
"It also means that our talent might not matter," I deduced. "Any literate person could have read this and know how to handle a bomb. We should take note of that."
"Yes," Hijiri replied while looking distracted, her face devoid of emotions. "We should."
"One thing I still don't get is how they are able to learn all of this in such a short period of time," I continued.
Hijiri looked as if she had just been struck by lightning. "What on haven and earth do you mean?"
"What I am saying is that the revelation of the motive was only yesterday," I explained. "These books aren't easy to read, even for someone with a military background like me. It's almost unbelievable that the culprit was able to obtain all the necessary knowledge to carry out this elaborate crime and then prepare it within less than a day." The nearly-botched attempt at disarming the first bomb indicated the killer was unprofessional, but the timing was still too narrow. All the more reason to believe so was the fact they also had to modify the radio signal receiver and rig it to the bomb.
"Do you propose that they might have planned this for longer than since the motivation was announced?" Hijiri beckoned. "That there was already a wolf among us before Monokuma bared his claws?"
"I don't propose anything just yet," I told her. "I just said what I thought would be logical. Then again, Mozart's prodigal talent was discovered the very first time he played the piano, and we're not too far from his level. Some of us might just learn faster than most." To some, I might just be blabbering, but my attention to every detail came with my talents just as the others had their own quirks.
"Well said," Hijir remarked. "Let's keep that in mind."
Another thing that caught my eye was the information that each C4 tube packed the power of a hand grenade minus the shrapnels, which was consistent with the explosion in the main hall earlier. Had all four of them gone off at the same time, that might have been a room wipe leaving no survivor. Obviously, killing everyone wasn't what the killer wanted, so they probably disarmed three of the four tubes and used a single one to set the murder in motion. I felt like things were coming together now even if we still had a long way to go.
"Is there something wrong?" I asked her. Her expression and behaviors told me there was more to the story than she had already told me, and any information was helpful when it came to uncovering this dark mystery. "Are you feeling alright?"
Hijiri gave me a dismissive smile. "Of course I'm not feeling alright. If any one of us is feeling alright under this insurmountable pressure and unrelenting cruelty, they are either lying or have already lost it. Or they are Fitzgerald, who is not here at the moment."
Her usual passive-aggressive behavior notwithstanding, there was definitely something Hijiri was hiding. Unlike my own secrets, hers might be directly related to the current murder as her behavioral change only took place in its aftermath. I dared not ask her further, but the truth might need to be bared if we were to find the killer. If I was lucky, she might confess during the trial. If I told the others, maybe Rin might give her some persuasion to make her speak out.
Or perhaps I would figure it out myself without relying on the goodwill of others - I knew Dirty Fitzgerald would probably have the answer by now if he had been here.
Truth Bullet #7
Guidebooks
Two books in the library, Guide on Handling Bombs, Explosives, and IEDs and Armory of Novoselic Armed Forces Encyclopedia show signs of having been used. The marked sections in them contain the knowledge necessary to perform the murder.
Truth Bullet #8
Murder weapon
The device is called JE-7 and is used extensively as anti-personnel mines and booby traps due to its triggering mechanism. There are four C4 tubes attached to the standard device, but, apparently, only one was used to cause the explosion in the main hall.
Truth Bullet #9
Force of the explosion
The explosion in the main hall was created by a single C4 tube, which packed the power of a hand grenade. The explosion was local and did not produce any shrapnel, so only the person within its small blast radius, namely Eliza, was directly harmed.
10:30
Chemist Lab
I stayed in the library a bit longer without finding anything new. I tried searching for any book that might contain knowledge on electronics, engineering, or radio waves but found none that seemed to have been used, at least not with the same amount of carelessness.
Seeing that Hijiri resented my presence, I thought I should leave her alone for the time being. I told her to meet up at mid-noon for a testimony go-through and, perhaps, to spend our last moments with Tatsuya. Hijiri wasn't too thrilled about the former, but she agreed. With that, I got a move on.
The next place I wished to search was the chemist lab. I still had no idea how the killer managed to obtain the ready-made explosives in the first place. And since there was no indication of it ever being in the warehouse, the only other place I thought I might find the answer was the laboratory where quite a number of unusual items were stored. There was also the possibility that the JE-7 was just a red herring to distract our investigation and the killer had actually constructed the bomb themselves. Inu seemed to share the idea and was already there when I arrived.
"Amelda, you almost startled me," Inu gasped as I entered. He placed a hand on his chest as if to stem a heart attack.
"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I didn't mean to intimidate you. Was my presence that oppressive?" Thinking back, I must admit my lack of personal interactions with other humans outside the military might have contributed to this. Hope's Peak Academy was my first chance in years to make actual friends without them also being comrades or colleagues with common goals, after all.
"Not exactly," said Inu, calming down. "It's hard to explain. Perhaps the work aura would fit."
"I am giving off a negative aura?" I asked.
"No, I don't mean that," Inu replied quickly. "It's just... Sorry, I'm a bit shaky, after all. You know me. I'm just..."
"Don't worry about it," I cut in. "We'll get to the bottom of this."
"And what's next?" asked Inu sternly.
His question caught me off-guarded. "What do you mean?"
Inu inhaled deeply before saying, "I mean, I know I shouldn't sound like a downer, but... is there any hope left? And please don't throw any more empty platitudes at me. I have had enough of that. Yes, I am weak-willed. Yes, I am a burden to you all. But please, be honest for once. Just as I am being honest with you."
I paused for a moment. What amazed me was not only the fact the fellow spoke more words in one go than I had ever heard him albeit still a bit stuttery but the profoundness of what he said. I now felt like a hypocrite for my earlier attempts at trying to improve his morale earlier, telling him that things would get better and that I would protect him without producing any result. Sure, no harm had come upon Inu so far, but many others had been hurt and his mentality suffered as a result.
Since our meeting, I had thought him to be weak and, after the first murder, in need of protection. Even though my title was the Ultimate Accountant, the time I spent in military camps had a lasting impact on me. This, coupled with my strong physique and my fraternal mindset, made me subconsciously consider defending the weak to be my calling even if I had been trying to avoid getting physical against anyone before Tartarus Keep.
Perhaps that was not meant to be.
Perhaps I wasn't as capable as I thought.
Perhaps other people were already fine where I saw them in distress.
I liked Inu better this way. One fewer person to look after was always a welcoming development.
"You want my fair opinion, then?" I asked.
"Yes," Inu stated.
"Then I will confirm that we are not out of this yet," I told him. My opinion had not changed. This wasn't forlorn hope anymore. The recent developments including the successful dungeon raid, the revelations made regarding the nature and strength of the enemy, and Fitzgerald's impending return, were all stepping stones for our ultimate success. "That is what I honestly think. We are getting closer. Yes, more of us will die and neither of us is immune from that. Yet, if there is the slightest chance, a glimmer of hope, I will take it. I will not give in to despair. What about you, Inu?"
"I don't know," said the Ultimate Chemist. He looked at me closely to see if I was feigning. I gave him no reason to doubt. "I'm sorry. I wish I could be of more help."
"Help as much as you can," I told him. "Each of us has different sets of skills and capacity. And combining them is the key to our success."
"I don't know if mine even mattered," Inu muttered.
"Nonsense," I countered. "Try to remember. Wasn't it you who correctly deduced that the flowers in the botanical garden contained the biotoxin that caused Akihiko to lose track of the time, thus leading to his death?"
"I made one point," Inu stated.
"Without which we would not have been able to win the first trial," I insisted. "The weight of each of our contributions don't matter as much as our willingness to ever-improve ourselves. It's what you Japanese call Kaizen. That's what we should all strive for. From a tiny acorn, grows a mighty oak."
Inu pondered for a few seconds before nodding approvingly. "If that's what you think, then I will go with that. Sorry for being a bit too harsh on you. I was a bit worried that...uhmm..."
"That I might not be truthful?" I asked. That part was correct, considering the secret I still harbored, but my determination to win this game was genuine.
"Yeah, I guess so," Inu conceded. "Well, I think I know what I should do now."
"Good for you, then," I said. "Back to the investigation, have you found anything?"
"I'm not sure, really," Inu replied. "I checked the chemicals available. Certainly, someone could have made explosives out of these, but the smokes wouldn't have been right. Not to mention the main hall would have been highly noxious after the explosion, but that effect wasn't there."
"We can safely assume the explosives weren't manmade?" I asked him for confirmation.
Inu nodded. "As far as I can tell, that's correct."
I walked around the lab and took some glances. Few things here rang any bell. I came to check on the books on the shelves. With only basic knowledge in chemistry, I could read them as much as I could read ancient Egyptian texts. These books, not many of them, appeared to be in good order with the exception of two which were on Inu's working desk. Some of the books, as expected, were about chemical weapons including instructions on how to make them, but that probably wasn't what I was looking for in here. If Inu found nothing in these books that supported the notion that the explosive was crafted, then I saw no reason to linger.
I finally came across the shelf where most of the finished products were put on. I noticed four empty spots where vials should have occupied.
"Did you use any of those?" I asked, indicating the shelf.
"No," Inu replied. "I haven't touched any of them at all. It must have been the others."
"Are you sure?" I emphasized.
"Positively," said Inu.
Picking up the notes Hokuto and I made earlier (once again, my stocktaking skills came in handy), I jotted down the missing items. I had no idea what they were supposed to do, how Monokuma came to possess or figured out the way to produce them, or whether they were the real stuff as their names suggested at all, but if the others had faith in the effectiveness of their properties, then so should I. Regardless, despite the supposed dangers they carried, there was no indication any of them had the capacity to blow up.
Truth Bullet #10
Missing chemical vials
Some of Monokuma's special products are missing from their shelves. They include the following:
- Bane's Venom.
- Xenomorph blood.
- Memory-wipe syrup.
- Liquid ice.
My search in the chemistry lab was otherwise unfruitful. Inu explained to me about certain chemical reactions that might have something to do with the explosion which only proved our point earlier that the bomb was obtained rather than crafted.
In any case, I must hurry. Time was of the essence. There were more places to investigate and fewer people to do so than ever. I briefly wondered what Fitgerald would do under the circumstance before perishing the thought. The Ultimate Private Detective was a pompous ass who thought himself better than others.
We would prove him wrong.
We would solve this dark mystery without any of his obnoxious deliverance.
Author's Notes: It's here! Sorry for taking so long. I have two reasons for this. One, it's the investigation and I really want everything to make sense and come together. Two, I have been busying myself with commissioned writing for extra cash. But now that my paid projects are complete, I am back to my passionate free-posting stuff.
A shoutout for WritersMind15 and his story, Danganronpa: Brightmere Mysteries. It has the best investigation I have read in a Danganronpa fanfic, so kudos to you. Reading it makes me feel inspired.
I hope you guys have been enjoying it so far. It's been a great joy for me writing this, and I hope I will make it to the end.
Cheers!