It would have been an insane sight to begin with... There was a girl processing her thoughts by talking to herself through a hand puppet, a boy with multiple scars on his face leaning back against a wooden railing, a red-haired girl in a trench coat fiddling nervously with her top hat, a charming young man looking intently through photos on a digital camera... And among the stranger things, a black cat standing above them all on a pedestal.
Nobody wanted to make the first accusation, lest it draw attention to them, but the clock was ticking...
"Tick-tock, people..." meowed the annoyed, and annoying, voice of a plush black cat.
The silence was broken by a weak voice, which sounded afraid to say a word in the first place. "Why are we even holding a trial? It was obviously Robin. She's already a criminal, what would be so difficult for her about committing a murder?"
Robin, the girl in the trench coat and top hat, clapped back in frustration. "Are you sure that's the evidence you're going with, miss candy-cane stockings? I'm a thief, not a murderer."
The girl wearing the candy-cane striped stockings replied, "So? You're known for sneaking around and getting away breaking into properties. You would have the easiest time out of all of us committing murder."
"Rin," said another voice, jumping in. "It's wrong to accuse someone of something on the basis of their past. Not only is that ineffective, but shows weakness of character and a small mind."
Rin Takeba, the colourfully-dressed girl, was taken aback by the white-suited young man's claim. Her cheeks began to turn red as she started to get heated. "Are you defending the 'Ultimate Thief'!? What kind of 'Ultimate Symbol of Justice' are you posing as!?"
"I don't believe that Robin Fox is morally infallible. In fact, her actions in the past paint a rather morally gray picture of her. However, there is a gravity to this situation which I don't think you understand," Kagoro, the Ultimate Symbol of Justice, explained.
"I don't wanna hear it!" shouted Rin Takeba, the Ultimate Candymaker. "Now you're accusing me of having a small mind!? Fine, then who do you think did it, Mr. Symbol of Justice!?"
"Please calm down, everyone!" A voice that had yet to have spoken shouted. "If we get overly emotional, it will lead us to making rash decisions. We should analyse what happened up to the scene of the body being discovered. I know we're all in a state of extreme stress, but we need to attempt to remain calm."
"Thank you, Marukyu-kun," said the voice of another student who had yet to speak. It was the charming young man with the digital camera. "I was waiting for the opportunity to go over the evidence. For example, the murder weapon... Of all things, a pair of scissors. And there was only one supply kit missing a pair of scissors."
Everyone's gaze turned to a girl with a pencil over her ear and an oversized sweater draping down her body like a dress. "Yeah, it was you, Nagatame," Rin said innocently, as if she had just had her own a-ha moment.
It was damning evidence against Akihiko Nagatame... but it wasn't entirely true. Rather, it was, but there was evidence that could prove it might not have been her. I had hoped that she would speak up for herself, but I wasn't actually sure she knew how to defend herself against the evidence presented.
"Hey, she's right! We all showed our supply kits in a circle, and the only one missing a pair of scissors was hers!" chimed in a very unique girl wearing a modernised Victorian-style dress. It was the same girl with the hand puppet over her left hand. "I didn't even think of it until you brought it up, Miles!"
"W-what?" was all that Akihiko could think to say. "B-but... everyone's supply kits were missing something! Mine was only missing the scissors because I was sewing a skirt at the time! I can prove it!"
"How exactly do you think you can prove it, then, huh?" This voice was much lower, almost like a growl. It sounded like that whenever Mitsuo Hagakura got upset. And no one could blame him for being upset at a time like this.
"Uh... uh...!" panicked Aki.
"Nothing... Because you did it," Mitsuo said matter-of-factly.
"Did Lady Nagatame really possess the murder weapon...!?" A young man with silver and blue hair dressed in a butler outfit threw a gloved hand over his mouth in shock.
I had to jump in to help her! I wasn't sure who the murderer could have been, but I knew it couldn't be Aki! "False," I said, trying to remain calm.
"Huh? False? You got proof?" Mitsuo asked.
This was my chance to bring up my counter-evidence...! "Actually... yes. There was a pair of scissors also missing from the drawer in the kitchen. Probably for cutting bacon or string or whatever... But yeah, it was missing."
"What?" Mitsuo said, shaking his head. "I didn't even know there was a pair of scissors in the kitchen. Who would've even thought to check?"
"Hm..." Miles Cullen stroked his chin as he looked intently at the screen of his digital camera.
"Ooh, found something new? Spill it!" encouraged Kaiya Kaguya, the Ultimate Puppeteer. She leaned her elbows on the wooden railing before her in intrigue, making her hand puppet take on an intrigued expression as well.
"There's a band of red on the scissors that came in my supply kit," Miles said in his always-steady tone. "In fact, my pencil and ruler had the same band of red on them. If I may ask, did anyone else notice a band of colour on their supply kit items?"
I had to think back to when I first opened my supply kit... But yeah, I remembered my items having a red band painted onto them.
Kagoro Natsume spoke up before I could, though. "To answer your question, yes, I do remember a red stripe being on most of the items in my school supply kit."
"What's that got to do with anything, though?" chimed in another as-of-yet silent voice. It was Minako Hanamada, who ran a hand through her hair, and adjusted the way the multicoloured rose in it was sitting atop her ear.
"Take a look at this," Miles said, turning the photo on the camera's screen around so everyone could see it. "The handles of these scissors have no stripe of red on them. Therefore..."
"They couldn't have come from one of our supply kits!?" Kagoro gasped. "What a keen eye you have! I understand fully how you were able to expose so many corporate crimes!"
"Cool. So they're missing a ring of colour on the handle. That doesn't help us at all. It only poses more questions," Robin Fox said, pulling her top hat down slightly. "Who would've even known that there was a pair of cooking scissors in the kitchen?"
"Potentially anyone. But Ishiki was the only one who brought it up," Mitsuo explained.
Crap! Now the spotlight was on me! Thankfully, I knew exactly how to get it off of me. "The only reason I knew there was a pair of scissors there is because Rin told me about it."
Thankfully, that seemed to be enough to get me off the hot plate... for now. But now it was on Takeba.
"What? I'm a CANDY maker. Why wouldn't I make myself familiar with the kitchen?" she said, throwing up her hands.
"She's right," added the level-headed Marukyu. "She has a reason to be familiar with the kitchen. It's basically her territory."
"And she treats it like it, heh," joked Kaguya. "But still... We now know the murder weapon was the pair of cooking scissors that most of us didn't even know were in the kitchen. But that doesn't tell us who used them to commit the murder."
Everyone turned their attention to Miles, hoping he had the answer that would move the trial along. He looked up from his camera to see literally everyone's desperate eyes on him. He shrugged. "Why's everyone looking at me...? I-I didn't do it!"
"Well who did?" Mitsuo asked, balling his fist and growling like the wild animals he had once lived among.
"Obviously..." sighed Rin in frustration. "That's what we're trying to think through."
"Well then... let's analyze what was found at the scene where the body was found," suggested Miles. He turned his camera around so everyone could look at the panoramic photo he had taken.
It was the school's grand entryway... It would have looked like a great place to be, with a grand, gold-trimmed French door, and a wide balcony with a sturdy balustrade overlooking it. Except that... in the photo, there was a dead, bleeding body leaned up against the doors in a horrifyingly unnatural position. I wanted to go back to the day I had walked through those fancy French doors the first, and technically only, time. It was the day that fate had finally smiled upon my sad existence... The day my damned life had looked up, for once...