WARNING:

THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MURDER, MENTIONS OF SUICIDE, HINTS OF SELF-HARM, AND A DISCUSSION ABOUT BULLYING! If you are not comfortable with these topics then I suggest you don't read this chapter.

TKDz2b-Never Say Never [from Danganrona: The Animation]

When the song starts up, a bullet gets fired, which briefly shows the remaining contestants' faces on it before it obliterates the black background.

"(Danganronpa)"

McLeanokuma is seen laughing when the background breaks away.

"Reality slips far away, Fiction comes alive, We start to play it."

Alex Jones gasps at the screen as it shows him tripping on nothing.

"Hope is no more, Behind a closed door, As we drift away from where we were before."

Chloe Broderick smirks while she's seen aggressively playing her drums.

"Hope and Hopelessness become one, It's all meaningless, We've already begun."

Evan Herbert looks at the camera with uncertainty, in his hands were a gun.

"Yep, we are all one and the same. Never opposites, we play the same game."

Hannah Jordan had a smile on her face before it switches into a frown, all the while her eyes supported her mood.

*Song Skip*

"Walk the thin line between hope and despair, Running from the truth but it's already here."

Jared Monuel holds an open book out in front of him before his glasses fall off.

"Told so many lies, I dunno if they can find me. Only one life to live, so choose wisely."

Kahlin Mora wears his usual baseball clothing before swinging his bat which hits an oncoming baseball.

"Heads or Tails, Do you even know the side you're on? Doesn't really matter if it's on the same coin."

Leon Salvatore gives the screen an innocent smile, all the while he karate chops through a bunch of metal planks.

"(Oooooh!) If you wanna achieve you gotta believe, The time's right now. There's the door, Here's the key."

Sunny Persnisky scowls at the screen while there were an army of people behind him in suspicious clothing.

*Song Skip*

"Don't throw yourself away, Wipe all tears away, Even if the future seems uncertain,"

Sunny fires off a bullet which causes Evan to collapse. Evan fires off a bullet which leads to Sunny falling onto the ground which Hannah watched with a smile.

"Survive, find true happiness, in this world (Dedication got to swear the oath)."

Kyle grabs onto Chloe's hand and can just barely pull her out of her spot where a lightning bolt struck less than a second later.

"Look past all the tension to change the direction, 'Cause the sky is the limit!"

Leon just kept wailing down on Jared with never-ending punches, the two of them were falling through a black void during this.

"Just do it, Go for it, Neveeer... (Yeah, For yourself or do it for your folks)."

Alex yells out loud enough to have everyone look at him once he'd found something wrong in Chloe's words.

"Breakthrough the confusion, Find a solution, Beat the twisted evil things!"

McLeanokuma strangely dances for the camera before an elevator opens up behind him.

"Just do it, Go for it, Ne-e-e-e-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah... (Gotta believe let's keep hope alive) (Danganronpa)"

Inside the elevator stepped out Leon, Sunny, Chloe, Hannah, Kyle, Evan, and Alex who all took spots at a circle of podiums. The camera swiftly shows all their faces off one more time before showing McLeanokuma pulling out a hammer that he slams down onto a big red button. It took no time for the Chain of Shame to come out from behind the walls and it's the last thing seen before the screen cuts to the title card.

Total Drama: Move Along

Episode 17: Jared August Monuel (Part Two)

"Sometimes it's the obvious choice which is the correct one. Ever heard of reverse psychology? And if you'd like to say that I'm wrong then how about we'll get other people's thoughts on all this?" Chloe requests before looking at Sunny and Evan who both nodded.

"Don't need to ask me twice for this perfect opportunity." Sunny seemed proud and even excited to join in.

"I don't mind joining in, especially if it gets my mind off what happened," Evan comments with some relief but he seemed passionate and prepared to get into this.

'Well that's just perfect, the two people whose most biased towards and against Leon are going to give their takes. The best thing I can do is just try determining if Leon's even the culprit.' Alex thinks to himself before closing his eyes.

"Now to let the debating truly begin!" Chloe announces, which was a signal for the others to begin speaking. This was also an accidental signal for Alex to begin focusing on what everyone was going to say.

"Gladly... from what we'd seen of Jared's body earlier there were bruises on his face, you were responsible for those bruises, weren't you Leon?" Sunny brings up his first point.

'While I'd think that more wounds from last night should've transferred into the game, Leon did cause some bruises and there's no evidence to say otherwise so for now that sounds right.' Alex continues to speak inside his mind once he focused on a specific statement.

"Considering how brutal the beating was last night, I'd think the same thing. Beyond those bruises, though just because he caused those bruises doesn't me he killed him, though!" Evan tries defending his friend.

'That's equally a good point, Jared had been bruised by Leon last night but that doesn't mean he'd been killed by the same person inside the game.' Alex remains quiet due to not finding anything wrong with what's been said.

"Oh come on, just admit that there's nothing to really defend Leon here beside his words. It's clear as day that because of the motive, he's the only person who could've done it."

'Wait a second, that's wrong!' Alex opened his eyes when hearing these words, 'There's a bullet point I made in my head which disproves that-!'

[The Motive: Lia's Elimination]

"SORE WA CHIGAU YO!" Alex finally yells out loud enough, during his yelling a bullet noise goes off before the screen cracks in half at his yelling.

BREAK!

This single word shows up on the screen before everyone looked over at the person who'd randomly pointed out something wrong with what Chloe had said, and he did it in Japanese.

"...I still don't speak Korean, What was that?" Chloe had been completely confused by the choices of words.

"Basically, I'm going to point out the error in your statement." Alex summarizes what he'd just said.

"Oh please do, I'm curious as to what exactly I've said wrong," Chloe remarks, she seemed to have been amused by what's been said to her.

"What exactly the motive could be is too vague for us to just pin it to Leon. You do know what the word means, right?"

"Of course, I know what motive means, it's your reason for doing something and Lia's elimination would be enough to motivate him to kill someone," Chloe responds, she sounds like she took some offense to the question.

"I'd argue that plenty of people would want some revenge after witnessing the stupid actions which tanked Jared's entire game. You could even say that the aftermath of the elimination where Leon beat down Jared made the person in question go for him specifically to have an easy person to blame." Alex suggests a possibility.

"Wouldn't the beatdown technically be the motive then?" Chloe gets confused by this logic.

"Not if the reason for the beatdown is tied primarily to the elimination, 'The Motive' would still be Lia's Elimination because it's what caused a domino effect." Leon helps out with the explanation.

"Before we get further into things, Christopher, would you mind answering a few more questions?" Sunny looks at the person watching everyone else.

"As long as this doesn't take much time, I'm sure the audience would rather continue this trial instead of getting more exposition dumps!" McLeanokuma had a hint of annoyance in his voice.

"Screw you for that earlier explosion!" Alex's voice is heard verbally attacking the person that physically killed him earlier.

"My first question is related to that, actually: How did you make sure that none of us would die this time around? And how come Evan's revival took him outside this place but the rest of us just remained in-game the entire time?" Sunny asks and it looks like all his wounds have completely healed up.

"Well let's just say we kept 'team-killing' on from the previous challenge and so I used some objects from the Danganronpa series to fix any more potential issues that could've happened. Which is why Evan had been logged out of the game for a while unlike the rest of you." McLeanokuma explains before holding out his hands and the 'Necronomicon' is summoned in them.

"I'll take it that the 'Danganronpa Disease' that took over us in the elevator is another object from the franchise?" Sunny makes an obvious assumption.

"Obviously, although the best we can do is turn it down, it looks like some people like Japanese-Alex still have some slight effects from it. Don't even bother thinking of using this book, it's only good to be used one time and it'll last until the end of this challenge." McLeanokuma says, he threw the book into the air so high that it crashed through the roof.

"Glad we've got that settled, now, Will the consequences for us losing this trial be the same as the previous challenge?"

"Finally, you've asked a question that's going to be fun to answer! If the killer gets away with the murder then they'll automatically win the season!"

"Dammit. Sounds like this trial has more stakes than I'd like it to." Leon growls with subtle rage at this.

'He has to be bluffing, it would be completely ridiculous if he isn't!' Sunny tries to convince himself this wasn't the truth.

"OH, THE KILLER IS GOING RIGHT THE FUCK DOWN, THEN!" Chloe gets an extra burst of energy, now she seems to be truly invested in what's going on.

"...Eh?" Hannah reacts to this information with confusion and uncertainty for some reason.

'That adds even more pressure on me to not mess up! Alright Kyle, this just means that now you need to get this right more than before.' Kyle gains tons of motivation at this reveal, but he also seems worried about potentially failing this.

"C-Crap, that means we each will have to try harder to not get the wrong person." Evan had been shaken by the news, but he tries keeping his focus on the trial.

"H-Huh?! You're k-kidding, right?!" Alex is in disbelief at the reveal.

"Whether you believe me or not is all up to you, just keep the possibility in your mind as the trial carries on!~," McLeanokuma says with nothing but glee and excitement for what kind of effect these words will cause.

"Let's get back to the trial at hand!" Chloe takes the lead again for her to figure out the killer.

"Last thing we left off at, we've confirmed that the motive doesn't just lead to me being the only possible person to commit murder." Leon picks up from where they've left off.

"While that much is true, do you have any evidence that actively disproves that you're not capable of having done the deed?" Chloe appears to be less aggressive in her line of questioning.

'Time to fact check these next words.' Alex remarks in his mind.

"As I've mentioned earlier my moral code prevents me from committing this murder." Leon confidently declares with closed eyes.

[Leon's Moral Code]

"No! That's wrong!" Alex wastes no time interrupting and he shoots down this incorrect statement.

"Seriously?! Weren't you just defending me a moment ago?" Leon gets annoyed by the flip-flopping he'd been witnessing.

"The only side I'm on is the truth. Now, you insist that killing isn't something you'll ever do but it wouldn't count as actually killing someone if you did it inside a virtual world, would it?" Alex simply points out something he'd been holding in for a while now.

[Previous Virtual Challenge]

"Actually, I think he'd go against that too." Another voice enters the conversation and Alex's eyes widened before he looked at the person who interrupted him.

"Sunny? Well, that's quite the twist." Alex reacts with some surprise when seeing that Sunny Persnisky had been the one to counter his words.

"Any personal relationships no longer matter which means I'll be unbiased in my judgment. If we look back at the previous virtual challenge, I think it's clear that Leon would be against virtual death because guess what happened after Jun was eliminated." Sunny points out while closing his eyes.

"That's right if the previous challenge's events sparked him into wanting to become a 'hero' then that should mean that by default he'd aim to not become like Jun, who terrorized everyone and that would also mean that killing people in this world would be out of the question!" Alex realizes what exactly the delinquent had been getting at.

"Dammit, he deliberately would avoid inflicting the same pain on others which I'd caused him. This means that by default his moral code would be against virtual killing out of spite against me!" Chloe angrily yet quietly whispered to herself when hearing this evidence.

"Glad you two explained my innocence for me, although I'm partially expecting more evidence for me to be taken out of consideration," Leon spoke with crossed arms.

"You're not the only person we'll need to investigate though, for now, it's safe to move onto another person because while anyone could've done the murder, it's been proven that other people could've taken advantage of last night to frame you and that if we're looking at your goals and actions logically then killing anyone inside this world would contradict your entire character. Or at least it'd contradict the part of you which I still believe is genuinely good." Evan ends the explanation by staring into the eyes of the brawler.

"...You do know that I could potentially be acting to fool you, right?" Leon looks away and closes his eyes during his response.

"You're not acting though, in fact, you're completely genuine right now~" Hannah's voice indicates that her view on the situation has yet to change.

"Looks like your fellow actor-buddy just exposed you," Kyle comments with a slight smile.

"Sometimes you all know just how to tick me off and impress me, don't you?" Leon had mixed feelings over being proven innocent for the time being or that he's at least not trying to fool everyone.

"Yeah, this game will do that to you. Now you could still be a killer but for now, it looks like that's not the case so let's just move onto another subject." Alex temporarily takes the lead to switch topics. Chloe sighs in defeat and chooses to silently accept her wrong assumption which she'd made, but not a single word came out of her mouth about this.

"Rather than just trying to find out the person immediately, how about we instead focus on the situation at hand which could help narrow down the suspects? I'm sure we're all curious about that doppelganger incident earlier so let's try solving that debacle." Sunny helps out in the changing of topics.

"Alright then, guess it's going to be my time to help contribute to this trial." Kyle takes it as his cue to truly get involved in things.

"Sorry for interrupting you Kyle, but, curiously, you've decided to avoid talking about what could've been the murder weapons, Sunny~" Hannah swiftly calls out the person who'd changed topics.

"Focusing on the murder weapons would be good if we had a body to inspect because and since we don't, it'd be impossible to determine what exactly did him in." Sunny attempts to explain the reasons for his decision.

"What if someone were to remember what wounds the body had sustained?~" Hannah questions, giggling a little.

"Why the hell would y-you remember something like that?!" Sunny appears to get nervous, whether it's due to him getting called out or because Hannah's freaking him out this much is unclear.

"How could I forget the damage he'd suffered? If someone really went out of their way to kill my boyfriend then, of course, I'd want to see them suffer~" Hannah casually explains to everyone in the room.

"What?! Wasn't Jared and Lia back together by the end of-?" Evan abruptly ends his questioning. Something seemed to click for him once he thought about what did happen yesterday.

"What can I say? The things people do for love may seem drastic to all of you, but to a Heartthrob like me it's just another example of people becoming 'simps'~" Hannah says, grinning from ear to ear when declaring this.

"So, you're saying that-?" Alex tries double-checking what's being implied.

"Rather than focus on me, how about we turn back to Sunny boy over here before he potentially wins the season early by getting away with Jared's murder?" For once, Hannah didn't sound overly enthusiastic when speaking.

"I'm not the murderer! If you'd like for me to prove this then-" Sunny tries defending himself.

"Now, Now, there's no need to get all defensive there. We'll need to discuss the murder weapons first, Evan would you mind joining in on this?~" Hannah brings in someone who had unfortunate knowledge of the potential weapons.

"...I-I'll try my best to contribute." Evan had some hesitance in pursuing the topic but he does agree to join in once again.

"..." Kyle tries opening his mouth to speak, but instead of saying anything, he shuts it and just continues to get lost within his thoughts.

"Since I've also seen the corpse before it disappeared, I'll insert myself into this too!" Leon declares while uncrossing his arms and placing his hands on the podium below.

'This is a topic I'm less informed about, but it still wouldn't hurt to listen in on what's being discussed.' Alex finds this to be a good moment to mentally prepare to counter any contradictions again.

"If our memories are worth relying on, then you used the convenient katana during our battle which most likely caused the slash across Jared's chest," Evan recalls the earlier battle.

"Considering how wide the slash was, it definitely could've only belonged to a long weapon." Leon gives his opinion on the matter.

"It's just something I noticed during our battle. I've never used a sword before so I thought it was worth trying out, also I couldn't have been the only person to have seen the object before it was used!" Sunny proclaims, looking around the room for someone to back him up.

[Strangely Placed Katana]

"I agree with that!" Alex eventually caves in and rather than shoot down the claim, he gives Sunny what he wants and backs him up.

"Couldn't you have phrased that better?" Evan finds the wording to be strange.

"That's something we'll have to put up with through the rest of the trial, thanks to the disease." Leon reminds the officer-in-training, who nods.

"So you noticed the object earlier too?" Sunny asks, a notable amount of relief had been heard in his voice.

"Before walking out the cabin to search for Jared, my mind was too busy thinking about other things to really notice it or take note of the weapon but when you brought it up, my mind went back to that moment and could vaguely remember seeing it in my vision." Alex gives his story of having seen the object.

"Perfect. Now that we've established that I'm not the only one who saw the weapon, this proves that I didn't hide the weapon since hiding it in such an obvious spot and then using it would defeat the entire purpose of hiding it in the first place!" Sunny declares.

"How does one person seeing it translate to you not having hidden the katakana?" Chloe questions the logic being used.

"Because if I'd hidden the... katakana then it wouldn't have been found by anyone, the only reason for me hiding it in public would be to make it seem like anyone could've used the object. If that would be my intention then why would I use it inside a cabin where people surrounding me?" Sunny elaborates and is able to explain his logic.

"If we're being technical there's one weapon you'd kept well-hidden, everyone here knows what I'm talking about, correct?" Evan brings up something very fresh in his mind.

[Random Gun]

"Of course, it could only be the gun which I used." Sunny volunteered to present the evidence himself.

"By the time you used the weapon, a bullet had been missing. Which could only mean that the gun absolutely contributed to the murder." Hannah kept on whispering, her eyes had been laser-focused on the current top suspect.

"To bring up my same point, for me to use the loud and flashy weapon in the middle of everyone would be an idiotic move on my part if I really did commit the murder." Sunny again attempts to disprove the evidence.

"There's the issue, you did murder me with the same weapon," Evan confirms as he spoke in a darker tone.

"Good argument, Counter argument: YOU KILLED ME WITH THE WEAPON TOO!" Sunny took the opposite approach and instead raised his voice out of frustration.

"Excellent, you're both murderers now~ Both of you have proven to have the capacity to kill, unlike Leon which is why you're our top suspects," Hannah responds to both boys which made each of them grit their teeth.

"It's a little unfair to blame Evan when he'd been killed first." Leon tries to defend his friend's actions.

"Murder is still Murder. The only reason we didn't shame Miriam for killing Jun is because we all were still reeling from our deaths and because we all hated that arrogant bastard too much to feel any sympathy for him." Chloe took the time to argue against this defense.

"Oh that's priceless coming from-!" Leon begins to raise his voice.

"Regardless of what happened last challenge, in this challenge, two people have already killed publicly and we're going to see which of them is the true killer." Chloe prevents the brawler from exposing her completely.

"Have you considered that maybe other people are better at hiding their murders than the two least-subtle players in the game? Hell, we're only not the most obvious players in this competition because Leon exists!" Sunny continues to try and take the suspicion off of him.

"...Wait, have we discussed the time of the murder yet?" Kyle jumps in with one question that no one seems to have yet asked.

"Not really, because we've been rushing into accusing people above all else." Sunny answers in about no time.

"Talking about the circumstances of someone's death is tough without a body to give any indications." Hannah justifies her approach to the situation.

"Hopefully this'll be helpful but who found the body first?" Kyle asks a question directed specifically towards two people.

"The two of us found it at the same time, when walking out I'd caught Alex waiting for the reappearance of the faker." Leon starts off the brief story on how he'd found the body.

"Once he arrived, some kind of smell had been identified by him and so I very reluctantly followed him until..." Alex goes silent when reaching the part of the story where they found the corpse.

"You screamed like a little bitch." Sunny very bluntly recalls the scream which caught everyone's attention. Rather than paying attention to Alex falling to the ground from this verbal shot to his non-existent ego he just continued to speak, "The smell of a dead body is very bad so it makes that Leon took notice of it. Which means the murder was done before anyone else had waken up which doesn't help narrow things down at all."

"Hold on a moment there! Can you repeat those words?" Alex scrambles back to his feet, it looks like these words caught his attention.

"The murder was done before anyone else had gotten up, which means that nothing is changed when it comes to who the murderer is." Sunny gives a rough repeat of his own words.

'That's not right at all, Hannah had been awake around the time of the murder, and although she saw no one enter the cabin... What if she's lying to provide an alibi ahead of time? Not remembering who entered the place with a gun and a giant sword is quite an oversight, maybe if this is a bluff then I'll have to fight fire with fire to expose her lie.' Alex sorts through his thoughts to find the right choice.

[Hannah's Perspective]

'I'll turn this lie-'

[Alex's Perspective]

'Into the truth!' Alex declares within his mind before nervously chuckling.

"What's with the awkward reaction? Did you find a convenient way to counter my words?" Sunny had a mixture of interest and annoyance with this.

"Sorry for not mentioning this sooner, but it looks like something didn't cross my mind until now." Alex starts off his lie by scratching his cheek.

"Sounds like someone's trying to compete for worst-memory with Kyle." Sunny remarks, his comment caused Kyle to gulp in the background.

"Last night, I'd woken up and noticed that I could see clearly which led to me immediately putting on my glasses this time to avoid an incident similar to last time. When doing this, however, someone had entered the cabin." Alex begins explaining, pushing up his glasses to add some dramatic flair.

"...What are you doing?" Hannah catches onto how familiar this story had sounded.

"Who they were, I couldn't tell since my in-game eyes were adjusting to using glasses but when my eyes could see again they showed one person who stood in front of me." Alex slowly looks over at the heartthrob with a straight face.

"And now you're trying to accuse me of being the killer? That's absolutely-"

"Evan pulled the trigger earlier to kill Sunny, but guess who gave him the order to deliver the execution?" Alex starts to sweat but he points a finger gun at the girl who stood across from him.

"Just because I've killed one prick doesn't mean I'd kill my beloved~ And lying to try and turn everyone against me? That's a devious move." Hannah keeps her cool and this development seems to have amused more than anything else.

"Well, you've lied straight to all of us with that little story of yours, because let's just say someone here can help out in the trial. Kyle, do your thing!" Alex points over to the baseball player who nods at this.

"Finally... recently my memories have been starting to come back to me," Kyle reveals to everyone immediately.

[Kyle's Memories]

"Earlier, he remembered who was the first victim of the last virtual challenge." Alex gives specific evidence to support what's being said.

"Jared died in the first VR challenge, I couldn't remember this before being inserted into this simulation and because of that I've got a theory for this challenge in particular." Kyle declares before closing his eyes.

"Guess we've given you plenty of time to consider the possibilities, hopefully, this one will be good." Sunny speaks for everyone in allowing the baseball player to speak.

"This is just my guess but what if our memories of what happened last night were completely altered to prevent us from remembering who came into the cabin during the night?" Kyle suggests something that causes McLeanokuma to sigh.

"Way to ruin the big surprise! Now that I need to explain what happened during the night, the killer in question did enter and some of you did catch them in the middle of the act, so to keep the challenge going we altered your minds into not remembering it. However, it looks like the mess known as 'Kyle's Memories' had other plans because of course they did!" McLeanokuma looks to be upset by this.

"I'm gonna be honest, I've had no idea about any of that." Alex bluntly admits which led to some facepalms being heard across the room.

"Why'd you even accuse Hannah then?!" Sunny became the only person to really question this verbally.

"It sounded too convenient that she had an alibi around the time everyone had been asleep, which is also the time in which this case had taken place. Looks like my suspicions paid off because our minds were changed to not know anything of what went down yesterday which could only mean that Hannah couldn't have remembered anything!" Alex yells out, pointing a finger at the heartthrob by the end of his statement.

'Thank the goodness, my assumption seems to have been right.' Kyle seems completely relieved that his guess had been correct.

"...Sounds like my lie hadn't paid off in the way I'd intended it to." Hannah comes clean, in the background McLeanokuma could be seen grinning even harder once this happens.

"So you truly lied about last night?!" Leon appears to be the most surprised by this reveal.

'Not even Leon could tell she'd been lying? Either what he said earlier had been completely bullshit or the girl's stepped up her acting game.' Chloe thought to herself when seeing the other actor's reaction.

"My idea had been to create a concrete alibi to convince you all to avoid any chance of voting for me, especially since I'm not the culprit." Hannah changes her tone to speak like normal now.

"Couldn't you have stopped to think about the chance that your plan wouldn't work?" Sunny calls her out without hesitation.

"Not every plan can land the mark, besides, some risks are worth the reward." Hannah wastes no time in responding either.

"That still doesn't excuse the risk of potentially getting caught, it's illogical to create a lie which can be used against you when none of our current evidence points to you." Sunny continues to be baffled by the course of action which has been taken.

"Why'd you kill Evan then?~"

"..."

For the first time since this trial had taken off, no noise was heard around the room and everyone standing in this room was all looking at the silent person. Speaking wasn't an option for Sunny who could do nothing but look at the girl standing across from him.

'Someone's placed me in quite the dilemma here, guess it's time to actually start trying in this trial.' Sunny finally responds by giving the heartthrob a glare that spoke louder than his words could ever. This simple look declared mental warfare between the two of them.

"Perfect. Now we can decide if the killer's me or you, and if not then the culprit should be quite clear." Hannah hadn't been affected by this glance and explained to everyone what exactly these two would do to each other.

"Considering we've already accused half of the people left in the game, I seriously doubt that." Evan denies this notion, a part of him wanted to get involved to make his innocence apparent. However, he knew that getting between the blondes in front of him wouldn't end well, and he chose to just observe.

'One of our reasons for that is because Sunny and Hannah have made decisions that deliberately put themselves in the hot spot, I'm personally starting to doubt either of them are the killer. Picking the wrong person can cost us the win though so if the culprit is one of them, let's hope they're going down in this.' Alex chose the time to mentally remark to his friend's comments.

"If the debate's about ourselves not being the killer, then this will be easy because there's no reason for Chris to pick me!" Sunny proudly admits, looking over at the supervisor who stared blankly at him.

"You see that'd make sense under normal circumstances, but this is McLeanokuma who is not the Chris we're all used to. In this form, he could've allowed you to murder in the hopes you'll fail and despair when your failure does eventually happen. Raising the stakes so high into giving you an automatic win for winning this one challenge could be one of his ways to taunt you with the possibility of victory." Hannah gives a detailed and flawless counterargument.

"Knowing this version of Chris, that could be very possible. Do you think he'd even go this far to the point of risking me winning the season early just in the vague hope that I'll completely screw this up? Even for someone like him, that's too excessive and stupid." Sunny points at the person spectating all this while speaking.

"Awww~ You think of me more highly than I thought you originally did!" McLeanokuma got overjoyed at this comment.

"Now's not the time!" Sunny gets back to the matter at hand automatically, as expected he didn't react so kindly to this comment but that didn't matter. After this, he tries to continue defending his innocence, "Going this far to make me despair would be too drastic. From what we can figure out about Chris is that this time around he probably chose someone he liked and so I'm not an option because of that."

[Chosen by Chris]

"Sore wa chigau zo, looks like you made quite an oversight because last time Chris had chosen Jun last time around and from the lecture he gave him, he wasn't exactly into the whole persona his narcissistic buddy came up with. While this McLeanokuma is different, if the murderer had been chosen before we all got hooked up into the VC then the logic would still apply here." Hannah takes the opportunity to disprove her opponent's arguments.

"What makes you think Chris McLean's going to follow the same pattern with picking the killer this time around? All your argument proved is that Chris could have possibly picked me to commit the murder and that there's good reason for why he's doing all this if that's the case. That's good but I'll point out a reason to be suspicious of you too beyond your lie because you're still a suspect." Sunny remains calm during all this, however, sweat did begin to form on his head.

"Take your best shot then~" Hannah returns to her whispery yet menacing voice.

[Cracked Glasses]

"Sore wa Chika-! Oh, fuck it," Instead of going through with saying the phrase, Sunny decided to completely give up. Instead, he just carried on with his point, "When we all entered there was something about the podium you picked that you decided to hide instead of having us all speak about it! And it was Jared's glasses that could've helped contribute to the case because it's the only physical hint we've got left of Jared."

[Jared's Missing Body]

"Another error for you~ There's actually a part of the ground that hadn't been destroyed in the explosion which is one of our other remainders of the body." Hannah teasingly shot down a slight error in what was said.

"Oh yeah, the location of where someone dies during a time where nobody could provide an alibi is very helpful." Sunny just rolls his eyes at this counter.

"It's a nitpick for sure, but sometimes a series of mistakes does add up far more than people might anticipate it too." Hannah rationalizes why her nitpicking could be helpful to the trial.

"Guess that's more reason to accuse me but it still doesn't change the fact you just hid some evidence about your boyfriend we could've discussed!" Sunny has no choice but to admit defeat, before going back to his previous point.

"Whoops, looks like we've both got something else to make us questionable to all the other people in this room~" Hannah points out about things are at a stalemate right now. In the midst of this, she pulls out Jared's cracked glasses and placed them on which caused Alex's left eye to switch without even knowing it.

Sunny didn't speak at all and smirked when thinking about other ways to possibly combat his opponent and to potentially give himself the upper hand.

"Today you've surprised me a great deal, not everyone can have the balls to murder someone they'd consider their boyfriend or girlfriend... Did you think that lowly of him?" Sunny switches tones to speak with amusement now in his voice.

"...Alex, my dear~" Hannah giggles as she looks over at another guy.

"Y-Y-Yes?" Alex nervously gave his response, 'Why do I suddenly feel so nervous around her?! And how come a part of me feels obedient to her?'

"Do you believe that I would kill my dear Jared?" Hannah drops any hints of pleasure and instead, she spoke emptily.

"N-No! I'd like to believe you'd have enough of a heart to not go too far." Alex answered the question with little hesitation.

"You better not be turning all the guys here into your simps!" Chloe abruptly yells out from the background.

'I've been in the background haven't I? Alright Kahlin, you can help everyone out and you won't lose the game for everyone here!' Kyle's currently contradicting the claim made by the drummer. It looked like he was about to open his mouth in order to get himself involved in the trial again.

"Sorry and not sorry to interrupt, but haven't we all been avoiding the main reason why we'd gotten suspicious of Sunny in the first place?" Leon stops this from happening to point out an oversight.

[Jared's Words]

"Thanks for bringing it up," Evan, the person who shared this evidence with everyone, agrees with the point raised immediately. "If that isn't evidence against Sunny then I've got no idea what else is."

"Hehehe~ You were saying about me having done the murder, bitch?~" Hannah happily took another dig at the person who tried making her seem suspicious too.

"...Don't get cocky, there are other ways to answer that riddle." Sunny clenched his fists and a new spark burns throughout his body, if there was one thing he was going to guarantee, it's that he was going to go put up a fight.

"Alright then, let's hear out what that wrinkly brain of yours have thought up~" Hannah seemed doubtful of her opponent's words but she seemed to be amused enough to give him a chance to speak.

"The riddle was: When the temperature reaches its peak and you truly start feeling the heat, Which killer are you going to meet? Now under normal circumstances, this would all point to me, but there's another possibility we should all consider. Maybe someone like Jared wouldn't give such an easy answer and that we should focus more on general human reactions."

"What kind of human reactions are you talking about?" Leon finds this statement to have been quite vague.

"If we're looking at things logically then people do indeed start burning up from the sun, but there are other ways for their bodies to heat up like tiring themselves out or by being inside a small and enclosed space. This means there are more ways for someone to begin 'feeling the heat' than just by forgetting to put on sunscreen when going to the beach like idiots."

"While that's a fair point, overheating is the result of all those methods and as far as I'm concerned heat strokes can kill people, my point isn't that there are multiple ways for someone to heat up but that the sun gives us most of the heat. Since the sun provides us with heat, and since too much of that heat can kill people, this means that someone with the name 'Sunny' who also kills people is likely to be an answer to the riddle." Evan rationalizes his reasoning.

"Perhaps he was referring to another kind of 'killer', maybe some kind of lady-killer even?"

"Are you referring to the type of guy that attracts girls all too well? A.K.A. Hannah if she was a boy?" Chloe took the time to mention her partner-in-crime once more.

"Thank you for saying that because it's exactly where my point had been heading towards, the Heartthrob who stands in front of us all!" Sunny finally gets to the point while literally pointing at the person he's targeting.

"Technically we're in a circle so she's not standing in front of everyone-" Kyle decided to be the person to nitpick what had been said.

"And for those of you who are wondering how this connects to the first part of the riddle, then allow me to explain!" Sunny doesn't let the baseball player finish his sentence before continuing with his point. "There's a lot of people outside the game who cares about Hannah and what are the chances some of them are attracted to her? Quite high and whenever you're near someone you've got... feelings for some people find themselves 'in-heat', blushing, or other things lovesick people react when they're near people they believe they've got a chance with. My point is, people sometimes burn up on the inside when being near someone and I'm sure that's something which our fellow simp-controller here knows about all too well."

"Are you purposing that I'm the culprit because of my status and how it relates to love? That line of logic is a little far-fetched, don't you think?~" Hannah doesn't seem too worried by the claims.

"I'll admit that Jared isn't someone I'm all that close with, however, I'm sure if he had to give a riddle that wouldn't blatantly give away the killer then overthinking it would be better than taking it at face value." Sunny continues to deliver counter after counter, even with his back against the wall he seemed to think his way through things.

"This doesn't prove ANYTHING! You two keep putting the suspicion on each other, but it's not helping us narrow down our options! In fact, it's just showing us that we've got a fifty-fifty guess by the end of the trial!" Chloe finally lets out her frustrations about how things were currently going.

"I'd say we should vote for Sunny, he killed earlier before Monokuma-" Leon starts off his response.

"MCLEANOKUMA!"

"McLeanokuma announced to all of us that when someone dies in the game, they don't die in real life. There's no way for him to have known that unless if he was the killer." Leon corrects himself and finishes his response.

[Evan's Death]

"That's where you're wrong about that," Kyle shockingly chose himself to be the person to shoot down the point being made. It didn't take much time for everyone to look over at him, "Earlier he told the people in the cabin that he already recognized that we're all in a simulation." With his eyes closed, Kyle recalls what happened earlier before sighing, "And he said this right after having killed Evan."

'Didn't he say earlier that he forgot about the death which took place?' Alex found a contradiction in what had been said, rather than exposing it, however, he kept this information to himself.

"When I'd looked around the cabin, things were there that weren't previously there, and when getting pierced by Paul Blart over here something about the arrows stabbing me felt... real, but it just didn't look real to me. A part of me felt the pain but not from the same areas which they came from, it was like my body was being forced into replicating the feeling which felt similar to when I'd gotten hanged in the previous virtual world challenge." Sunny attempts to describe the events of earlier.

"Wait, you already knew I wouldn't die when you'd killed me earlier?" Evan looks to have been caught off-guard by the confirmation.

"Obviously, I'd rather avoid actually killing people on TV unless I intended to become the modern-day Jack The Ripper with the reputation of Hannibal Lector, or if I'd become the biggest idiot ever." Sunny bluntly answers.

"That still doesn't solve anything! We haven't even figured out if my fuckin' clone was a glitch in this goddamn Matrix!" Chloe starts grabbing her hair and stomping the ground.

[Urban Legend]

"Actually, I believe I've got the answer now." Kyle states after taking a deep breath in and out.

"Took you long enough, what's the deal with what happened earlier?" Chloe questions with a sigh of relief, luckily she had yet to pull out any hair from her head.

"Considering the creature looked like you when it wasn't you, how misfortune almost literally struck you after it did appear, and how vague this creature is, points to one thing. I'll ask a question just to be sure, McLeanokuma," Kyle turns his attention over to the host-turned-supervisor who tilted his head. "Did you all test this world to make sure there wasn't any kind of cloning glitch?"

"Let's just say this world isn't exactly perfect, so that could happen." McLeanokuma gave the best answer, shrugging during this response.

"Even by gaming standards, using a glitch to create a clone of another character that didn't exist before would require the code to essentially be broken, and considering how smoothly things have been moving I'd doubt that's the case." Leon disproves any possibility of this being the case.

"Since when were you a pro-gamer?" Chloe couldn't stop herself from blurting out this question.

"Well, if he is a 'pro-gamer' then I'll believe his words, and so that does confirm something about this game which is quite weird. Inside this game lies a creature whose only been theorized about and something that even the Navajo don't discuss with outsiders or amongst themselves. In case the creature exists in real life I'll avoid mentioning its name, but clearly, it's a shapeshifting being that can take the form of other things which walks in other people's skins." Kyle attempts to describe the creature the best he can.

"Why'd you guys program a real-life cryptid into the game?" Evan asked the obvious question.

"Considering how little information there is of the creature to most people, it's something which can be interpreted in different ways because there's no one way to portray it as." Kyle understood almost immediately why such a creature had been implemented.

"What if the killer requested for the creature to be brought into the game? If that's the case then whose form do you think it would take when entering the world?~" Hannah grows a sinister smile once something else clicks in her mind.

"Giving the creature the ability to transform into anyone would be pointless if no commands would be given to a creature that would become an NPC if no orders were given to it, and it definitely wasn't a confused program with the trick it pulled earlier since it responded to Chloe getting nearly shocked. So what you're basically saying is that the person who summoned it must've been the person we saw it transform into." Sunny seems to catch onto the implication.

"Wait... don't tell me you're really going to-" Chloe already seems to be in complete disbelief.

"That's right, I think you're the killer here Chloe~" Hannah turns her head and stares into the eyes of the drummer.

"...Okay then, if that's the game you wanna play, then you're going down motherfucker!" Chloe yells out, a fire begins burning throughout her body and she's filled with anger when staring down at the heartthrob. If she was being honest, she felt betrayed by these actions but this paled in comparison to all the hatred she's got for the person who dares to oppose her.

"Yes! Keep the drama going~!" McLeanokuma yells in excitement out of pure enjoyment for the events going down.

'That sadistic freak is making things even worse, and Chloe's making things worse by giving him what he wants! I mean seriously, there's no way it could be her if we're taking into account her reactions to what happened earlier.' Alex grits his teeth and analyzes the sight in front of everyone.

"Oh, I'll bring as much drama as you'll goddamn beg for because this blonde-haired indecisive, attention-seeking, loser-attracting little shitbag's going down!" Chloe takes full advantage of there being no filters.

"Don't talk about Fergy or Jared like that. The only loser in this room will be your self-centered pride and chances of even being compared to your brother." Hannah's head begins twitching when hearing these insults.

"Now we're bringing families into this? What about your sister then?! I'm sure she loves watching all the guys drool all over you while you leave people like her in the dust, but I guess that shows what kind of sister you are!" Chloe returns the favor by making things personal in return.

"Sounds like we've got something else in common then, but what separates us is that my parents actually love me~" Hannah takes another personal dig, this time around she puts on a sweet-toned voice and teased the drummer.

"Can you two cut it out with this cra-?" Sunny requests with annoyance.

"SHUT YOUR MOUTH YOU MALE BLONDE-HAIRED UNLIKEABLE, SOCIOPATHIC, ALL-TALK-NO-BALLS LITTLE CRAPBAG!" Chloe reuses the same insult from moments ago.

"You're a worse brother than I and Chloe are sisters... Oh wait, you've apparently got no sister~ Apologies for my mistake buddy~" Hannah took her turn to insult the person trying to interrupt the conversation.

"You girls are trying to push my buttons, aren't ya?" Sunny closes his eyes and tries holding back his anger for once.

"Oh we don't need to try all that hard-" Hannah starts off the response before looking at the girl she'd just been arguing with.

"With Leon in the room, you'll always be reminded of the time when you were obliterated and destroyed by someone who outsmarted you without even trying!" Chloe aggressively finishes the statement.

"...I mean, they're not wrong~" Leon casually admits with a chuckle following soon after.

"DO YOU WANT ME TO GASLIGHT YOU AGAIN?!" Sunny finally snaps and he wastes no time yelling at the brawler.

"You can try all you want~" Leon couldn't help himself, so he puts on his wide and sadistic smile which everyone here knows about all too well.

"Can you please stop making things worse all the damn time, Sunny?!" Evan steps away from his podium to get in between Sunny and Leon.

"Well, aren't you masochistic?~ You're trying to defend the man who knocked you out days ago~" Evan stops walking when these words left Hannah's mouth, his eyes widen and he slowly turns to look over at her.

"Y-You... Y-You saw what h-happened? And you did n-nothing to help me out?!" Evan begins to slowly walk towards the girl that watched him getting beaten up days ago.

"It didn't look like you were calling for backup, although I'll bet your parents were disappointed with what happened on that night~" Hannah puts a finger on her mouth, she was grinning from ear to ear now. Evan stops in his tracks and instead walked over to where the podium he previously occupied, there he grabs tightly onto the object and scowls at the mention of his parents.

"Is it me or does everyone here have some kind of family issue?" Kyle points out a trend with most of the remaining contestants.

"NOW'S NOW THE TIME HALF-PARENT!" Chloe and Sunny insulted the only person here who doesn't have a mom. These words caused Kyle to slowly look towards the ground and go completely silent at the taboo subject.

"Teenagers can be the best source of entertainment~" McLeanokuma just sat back and enjoyed every moment of the chaos taking place.

'What has this trial broken down into?' Alex couldn't help but be stunned at how sharp of a turn everything took.

"I don't need my stupid family for me to be happy, unlike you sad freaks!/IF MY TEMPER WAS ANY SHORTER, I'D KILL MORE PEOPLE IN THIS ROOM!/Why didn't you do anything when I'd looked like I was going to shoot someone?!"

'Everyone's breaking down and they're getting too into the heat of the moment.' Alex summarizes the panic going on all around the room.

".../So you're planning more bodies to your kill count? Guess I'll add your body to mines, then~/There wasn't much for me to do, and besides it looks like you couldn't do too much either~"

'If things continue going down this path we won't even be able to reach a person to vote on! How will we figure out the killer now?' Alex tries to keep his sanity amid the things everyone is saying.

"...I'd rather not talk about my mom, and using her against me is like using a weapon that can never be moved/I'D RATHER OFF MYSELF BEFORE GIVING YOU EVEN A SLIVER OF A CHANCE TO KILL ME!/Why'd you keep it a secret then? Are you trying to outsmart everyone from the shadows?!"

Finally, Alex found things to lock onto and he stares into the screen

[Moved the Weapons]

"I-!"

[Potential Suicide]

"See-!"

[Mastermind]

"It!"

Soon after saying these words, the final three bullets were all fired off at the same time which went through Kyle's, Sunny's, and Evan's words respectively and they all first looked over at the person who yelled loud enough to be the loudest person. Chloe, Leon, and Hannah did the same thing with looks of curiosity on each of their faces at what had been said. Things seemed to have calmed down but Alex hadn't caught everyone's attention for no reason, right now he'll try resolving the case once and for all.

"I think I've finally figured out what could've happened in this case, and that the killer is someone we should've been suspecting the entire time." Alex makes sure to explain why he yelled out first.

"Are you calling us idiots?" Chloe realizes the implications of his words.

"Throughout all of this we've been trying to pin the blame on each other with Hannah and Sunny over here being our primary suspects, however, there's one thing we've been disregarding that plays a big role in murder cases which doesn't apply to either of them. I'll give you all a hint on what it is: It's what led us to accuse Leon." Alex looks around the room in the hopes someone will be able to pick up on what he's putting down.

"Sounds like you're talking about The Motive, although it's vague, if last night's elimination did cause all this then me or Hannah killing Jared wouldn't make sense. After all, he did single-handedly pull off an elimination which I personally enjoyed and it was done primarily due to Hannah wanting it, which means if either one of us were the killers then that'd make the motive pointless." Sunny quickly understands and he lightly slapped his forehead for not realizing this sooner.

"Precisely," Alex confirms without any hesitation.

'Dammit, they're catching on.' Someone in the room thought to themselves.

"What if the motive's something McLeanokuma lied about to get us onto the wrong tracks?" Evan slowly looks over at the supervisor during this.

"From what one of my friends have told me about Danganronpa, the bear usually never lies when answering questions because of despair-related reasons or somethin' like that. If that's true then the case should be the same here." Leon explains, not looking over at the person watching everyone here.

"Therion Suarez, that's a nice name to remember, although I'm going to now have to ask Morobin if he's become a 'pro-gamer' thanks to Therion when I get home. To answer your question the motive I'd given you all does factor into the case and isn't a lie." McLeanokuma erases any suspicions of him lying, it looks like his joy at the situation has deflated, however.

"Then that means it can't be either Hannah or Sunny, even if the latter is the most suspicious person here." Alex attempts to convince everyone.

"...You're sus." Sunny remarked too quietly for anyone to hear him.

"Just because some of the evidence doesn't point to us, it doesn't outweigh all the others ones which do." Hannah's voice goes back to normal while she looked unconvinced.

"What if some of the evidence doesn't point to either of you? It's a risk but what if we try looking at another possibility we've yet to consider which those points support also." Alex suggests with hints of uncertainty being heard in his voice.

"Does this have anything to do with you finding something off about whatever the three of us said during that panic debate?" Evan questions, remembering what happened seconds ago.

"Exactly, now that it's confirmed from Kyle we've got a shapeshifter of some kind in the game then this opens up endless possibility," Alex confirms.

"Hey, we're only doing Danganronpa references here! Don't reference other games, especially if they have something with that stupid BLUE HEDGEHOG!" McLeanokuma randomly gets very upset.

"That wasn't even intentional but it doesn't matter-" Alex tries moving back to what he'd been saying.

"Th-The h-hell?" Leon's voice is heard, everyone looked over to him to see that MULTIPLE SPEARS HAD BEEN IMPALED INTO HIS BODY!

"One more reference and I'll make sure more of these spears will speed up the virtual death process~ And believe me, I'll enjoy every moment of taking pleasure in hurting this challenge-sabotaging brat~!" McLeanokuma's red-eye begins to glow and more spears are summoned around him.

"LEON!" Evan begins running over to the contestant who had about five spears going through him.

"I-I'll l-live... just fi-finish... th-the case," Leon tells off the officer-in-training, even though his body started to stumble around the place he still stood up and spoke as best as he could. Some pink was even coming out his mouth but he grabbed onto his podium to keep himself standing, although he was feeling a lot of pain the brawler still could act normal. Watching all this go down made Alex gulp before looking over at the person he'd indirectly caused to be stabbed.

"At the rate of blood he's losing and his toughness, it'll be about twenty minutes before he virtually dies which should be enough time to finish the trial," Alex estimates from his inspection. Evan had already reached the brawler but he seems to have heard the information.

"How long do you feel like you'll live for?" Evan questions, something in him wanted to do something about the spears but knew doing that is impossible.

"Twe-Twenty minutes, j-just carry on with t-the tr-trial," Leon confirms, somehow he remained standing on his feet thanks to the podium helping him do so.

"Good advice, now step away from Leon so we can do exactly that, or else I'm going to teach you a lesson, Evan... one which will only make my despair-filled, sadistic soul feel alive~" McLeanokuma glares at Evan, threatening him to move away from the other contestant. He had his hands out and they seemed to be controlling the direction which the spears went since he held them back, and the sharp objects moved away.

"...Fine, I'll do it for my friend's sake, and to make sure your son doesn't feel much more shame from having you as a father." Evan simply complied with a direct jab towards the sadistic supervisor. During his walk back over to his podium, McLeanokuma stared daggers at him and started to move his hands before shaking his head, making the spears all around him drop onto the ground.

'Dammit Evan, you're making me feel bad for Leon now, well let's hope we can wrap things up before he dies!' Alex mentally gets himself back into the trial.

"So, about the 'shapeshifters' which you refer to them by?" Kyle tries to help out by giving a question about the case they've all just got sidetracked from.

"A point had been made earlier that the creature must've been given orders by someone to be brought into the world and to take later actions, this person must've been very smart to have known it and to find some kind of way to keep us off their scent. You could even say this person knew how to make themselves seem more innocent than they really were, however, this person is the Mastermind of the case!" Alex explains what everyone had already suspected.

"Good, we've just found a new word to describe our killer in the word 'Mastermind' which sounds exactly like a killer, which we already were already were trying to figure out." Chloe instinctively gives some sass in return.

"Like always you know how to leave positive impressions," Alex decides to give the drummer a sarcastic response before resuming his statement, "But yes, the Mastermind and the Killer are one and the same here."

"Doesn't sound like you've made much progress if you've just now figured that out, you sure Vince isn't clouding your thought process~?" Hannah asks in a cutesy voice.

"N-No! That's wrong!" Alex yells out with a blush visibly on his face.

"Interesting move to bring up someone completely unrelated to this case. What's your aim, Jordan?" Sunny stares over at the actor after realizing something odd with her words.

"I just thought lighting up the mood would be lovely for what we're discussing~." Hannah feigns innocence and pokes her cheeks.

"I believe her." Kyle randomly says.

"W-Wait! Let's not get sidetracked because now I'll inform you how this connects to the Mastermind and Killer because I've figured out who it is!" Alex catches everyone's attention now that his blush has died down.

'Last time around he nailed the culprit down before anyone else, I've gotta stop him now!' The same mysterious thoughts are heard once again.

"Think about it, Who here would be smart enough to create an extra entity to help out with the murder?" Alex finally begins revealing the person he believes to be the blackened.

"Only Kyle is all that knowledgeable about those cryptid things." Hannah uses her normal voice to answer the question.

"Not much people here know about them, but they're common to find in visual media, and some folklore are created for the specific reason to be a cautionary tale which means it's entirely possible for other people to know about them," Kyle informs everyone about ways to find out about cryptids.

"I wouldn't put it past a Mastermind to know at least some creatures that would be beneficial depending on the situation, although if it was Kyle then it wouldn't line up with other things about the person in question." Alex initially starts off by trying to prove Kyle's innocence before carrying on, "For example: Why would the killer have needed an extra body to help out in the murder?"

"There are multiple theories you can make about that, One reason could be that someone wanted another thing to move around the weapons in case anyone would catch them..." Sunny notices something during this guess before turning to look over at McLeanokuma, "Which would be completely pointless if their minds were erased otherwise, meaning that they would've done it themselves at that point on if they wanted."

"What if that clone thing was summoned to commit the murder? It was never specified that one of us did it!" Hannah brings up another possibility, this time she's grabbing onto her podium and sweating a little.

"Earlier it was deliberately stated that we find the person which Chris assigned, which means even if the clone did it they'd just be the murder weapon at most since they're not really a person." Alex once again disproves another of Hannah's statements as he stared at her, "Which brings me to my next question: Who would Chris like enough to assign as the killer?"

"Didn't we already discuss this? It's not guaranteed that the killer is someone that McLeanokuma here likes." Evan calls back to earlier in the trial.

"When you think about it the rule to have the killer win the entire season from winning this trial is a tactic more of a negative for us than anything else, sometimes when you raise the stakes so high it can make people act irrationally or make mistakes they wouldn't otherwise make. I'm sure that was the intention of our supervisor here, after all, helping out the killer would be better for television since he already knows who it is and so helping us out wouldn't be exciting to watch. Lastly, there's the fact he's made his biases well-known and he clearly enjoys how someone tried throwing us off-track from the real culprit." Alex closes his eyes so he could give this long response.

"But how do we even know who he likes, Huh!? He's not exactly the friendliest host." Hannah grits her teeth and seems to be getting tenser as things carry on.

"Well if it's not obvious enough he doesn't like Leon or Sunny, I'd say me too but for the sake of this trial, I'll exclude myself from the dislike list. Something I've been wondering which could help narrow down our suspects is Why would McLeanokuma try helping out the killer? Sure he's biased but if this person is on the level of being a Mastermind then they shouldn't need it, right?" Alex poses another question for everyone to ask.

"Maybe it's because someone here has some personal connections to Chris, which means he'd want to give them the win either because of a moral obligation he somehow feels or he'd lied about the rule in order to help out this person." Chloe could feel a smile start to form on her face while she turns to look at Hannah.

"First of all, you better stop bringing my sister into this. Second off, Why in the world would I kill my beloved? Doing such a thing like murder would be unimaginable for me" Hannah responds, by the end of her sentence, she wipes off the sweat from her head and closes her eyes. She seems to have regained her composure and had a slight smile on her face when these words exited her mouth.

"That's the worst lie-!" Evan tries arguing against this last point.

"I've been excluding one more question from the conversation... Who has power over Hannah?" Alex casually takes the lead and asks a question that silences the entire room.

"Power over Hannah? What's that supposed to mean?!" Chloe grabs at her hair and angrily looked over at him. Like always, her main emotion seemed to be anger.

"That's a per-perfect question, Who would have power over... her?" Evan slowly turned to look at the girl who'd caught his attention, he even gulped when asking such a question. When asking the question to himself, Curiosity is the main emotion that he felt.

"I'm not qualified to answer this question, but this person definitely must've been-" Kyle's eyes widened once he cuts himself off, unlike the other people here he seemed more willing to follow along with whatever is being implied. Even with his limited knowledge and attitude, Surprise when realizing the answer to this question hits him almost immediately. He might've not had his memories, but his feelings wouldn't have changed even if he did.

'Now that I think about it, there must've been a reason for Hannah being completely convincing today in her acting abilities. Too bad this pain hurts enough for me to figure out who became her motivation.' Leon continues to grab onto his podium with pink continuing to drip out his mouth. Even though he tried ignoring it, Pain is what's affecting him the most right now.

"...I-It's not her?" Sunny finally uttered out some words, his eyes have narrowed and all he could do is look at the ground to think about the question. Confusion had been the primary emotion he felt right now since he believed everything had been practically solved.

"...eh?" Hannah could only let out a sound at this question, her face became listless and she sounded devoid of life.

"For this case, the only person who all the hints could lead towards is the victim himself being the killer!" Alex finally tells everyone the person who he believes to be the culprit.

"Th-That doesn't make any sense though, Why would he take the opportunity to take himself out of the challenge?! He's already in a bad position due to his move last night, Speaking of which he made a deal that forced him into a do or die situation tonight, and Why the hell did Hannah try everything in her power to be the most likely candidate?!" Sunny seems flabbergasted by this reveal and is incredibly appalled at how illogical this all sounded to him.

"yeah, there's no way my beloved would do something that stupid." Hannah half-heartedly says and any energy she had left seems to have dissipated.

"I have no idea why he'd do all those things, but if we're looking at things then enough things line up to rule this as a Virtual-Suicide." Alex reinstates his opinion, when putting all the pieces together it could've only been the perfectionist.

"Does that m-mean he willingly let himself ex-experience d-death again? By his own hands?" Evan couldn't help but be partially horrified at hearing this.

"Exactly, and if we're looking at the Urban Legend then only he could've had any use for it." Alex brings up a previous point.

"That's right, the killer would've known that no one would have any experiences of last night whether we liked it or not, which means that sending one would be pointless unless if they couldn't put away the weapons themselves." Kyle quickly puts together why only Jared could've needed the extra being. He was looking down due to being both impressed and curious about the victim.

"that's not right, anyone could've used it." Hannah meekly attempts a counter-argument.

"I'll get to you soon Hannah, for now, I'll go back to the riddle which stumped me for a while now." Alex turns to look over at his friend when saying this.

"Well, we've got the second-half part of the riddle down by default, but the first part-" Evan stops speaking once something clicks inside his head, "When the temperature reaches its peak is around summer and that usually lasts through August! Or at least in one part of the world."

"Somethings are easier to figure out when you think of your options and insert the one which just clicks, the same goes for the riddle: When the temperature reaches its peak and you truly start feeling the heat, Which killer are you going to meet? And because it was Jared August Monuel who said these words, the answer is 'Me'." Alex backs up the realization his friend has come to.

"Th-That's an st-stretch." Hannah quietly, but no longer happily, tries out another weak verbal counter, her voice getting softer with each point getting brought up.

"Those words plus the placement of the weapons made it clear he'd been aiming to frame you." Alex ignores the heartthrob and points at someone else in the room.

"Assuming that he seriously did such a stupid move, I'd be the ideal person to frame which wasn't helped by my actions earlier." Sunny admits before letting out a sigh. Some interesting thoughts were going through his mind, however, 'I know the chances of my plan working out is all but guaranteed knowing Evan and his predictable emotions, but damn did it work against me here. I'll respect Jared for having gone after me though even if his reasoning eludes me for the time being.'

"Now we've figured out who Jared was planning to frame and how he'd been able to carry things out post-death using whatever limited chance he had of getting involved, the next thing we'll discuss which person accidentally made things easier to figure out." Alex states before initially looking at the female actor.

"H-He... d-didn't do it th-though..." Hannah could do nothing but look down to divert her eyes from looking at anyone, she then grabs onto her hand and intertwines them. At this point, it became clear any attempts to disprove everyone was futile now.

"Of course, this person is," Alex lifts his hand in the air to add some dramatic flair before pointing at the person who'd been the main hint as to what gave away the killer in his eyes, "McLeanokuma!"

"Upupupu~ Did I really? If so then I'd like to hear how exactly I did that." McLeanokuma seems more amused than anything else as he's being pointed at.

"Let's just say that it ties into The Motive because it wasn't a motive which caused one of us to kill, but Lia's Elimination became the motive for a certain person getting chosen for this trial. Someone betrayed another person close to them and because of that you gave the betrayer, Jared, the opportunity to take down someone else in the hopes it'll make for exciting TV like when he eliminated Lia since you'd, of course, want to capitalize on the moment." Alex puts his finger down and stares into the supervisor's eyes when explaining this.

"L-Little did he expect, Jared took him-himself down." Leon couldn't help but to crack a weak smile at the irony of this discovery.

"Once the person you'd given the power to kill anyone chose himself, you tried making things more exciting and so you blew up his body to make it impossible for all us to inspect what could've killed him, you made a new rule in the hopes that we'd all be too pressured by it to think things through, and you even stabbed Leon because you actually just hoped we'd all focus on him rather than the trial at hand. You did too much to make things more exciting and made it too obvious that the culprit was someone you don't hate." Alex continued to give a long and detailed explanation directed towards the black/white-haired person watching all of them.

"...I can't say rather you're right or wrong, so take that as you will." McLeanokuma found himself unable to say any meaningful response.

"With that dealt with, we're going to move onto the last talking point..." Alex slowly looks away from the supervisor to look at one specific person.

"Y-You're wr-wrong... d-don't be s-such a-an idiot," Hannah spoke too quietly for anyone to hear at this point, although she wanted to speak up she'd basically been talking to herself at this point.

"Would you mind speaking up? We can't hear your silent ramblings, Hannah!" Chloe has evidently had enough of the female actor and wanted her to speak up.

"I-It's n-not J-Jared!" Hannah stutteringly listens to the demand, even still, she made sure to look away from everyone.

"Throughout this trial, you made things much harder. From showing off your best acting skills you've demonstrated in this game so far, to intentionally getting other people upset and emotionally charged so they'd feel compelled to vote for you, by constantly engaging in debates against other people to distract us from the truth you already knew, and you even went the extra mile of having some of the evidence genuinely point towards you. It was hard to figure out your game and I would've even voted for you, but once I considered another possibility your façade got shattered." Alex takes his turn in speaking towards Hannah.

"L-Liar..." Hannah hypocritically tries and fails to refute anything being said.

"You didn't hide how much you cared for Jared, and at the end of the day that became your biggest downfall because no matter how good you're acting or how much evidence points towards you, your relationship with Jared is always going to be obvious and thus when considering your actions, he's always going to be someone to keep in mind."

"Th-That's... Th-That... Th..."

"At the end of the day, it wasn't Jared who'd been working for you, you were the one working for him."

"..."

"You tried so hard and got so far, but In The End..."

"...It doesn't even matter."

Hannah just fell onto her knees once she remembered the lyrics to a song which she remembers her sister signing to herself countless times inside her room. The consequences of what she's done finally hit her and what this all means causes her to grab onto the ground. Her surroundings turn pitch black and all the other people in the room are non-existent to her, and once this happens she presses her head against her face, it didn't take long for her to finally break down and cry relentlessly when letting out her emotions.

"What's wrong with her?" Chloe asks, she seemed unamused at the emotional breakdown going down.

"...Hannah's realizing what she's done," Alex simply says with his eyes looking at the ground.

"Sh-Shouldn't we-?" Evan takes a step away from his podium almost like he instinctually wanted to help out the crying girl.

Instead of doing this though, the words which she said to him earlier enter his mind once more. He stops walking to observe the girl who obviously needs someone to be there for her and is someone in need of help. Evan then did what he believed to be the right thing to do, turn his back and let her deal with the situation all by herself.

"Now, we let the consequences fall onto her." Sunny bluntly states without any hints of remorse within his voice, hearing these words causes Leon to frown a little but he too chose to not help out the sobbing girl. No matter how badly someone wanted to help her out, they all knew Hannah's actions deserved consequences and all of them silently agreed to not help her out.

"Let's get voting." Kyle tries to quickly move on from what's going on.

"Agreed, Who here votes for Jared?" McLeanokuma simply asks the obvious question.

Six of the Seven people in the room raised their hands to the question with Leon being the last one to do so, and before they all knew it, everything turned to white once the decision had been made.

Game Over.

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*The Real World*

Someone with blonde hair is the first thing that the camera catches and this person still had the VR headsets on even though the challenge had officially ended. Rather than taking off the device, they left it on and were practically crying to themselves, all they could see is nothing but darkness but that was something they didn't mind since it's how they felt anyway. Any joy that had been felt the last time the last person had exited the simulation was completely non-existent because this time around this person had messed up and didn't want to go back into the real world because of it.

"Congratulations everyone, you've all caught me." A voice was heard speaking and the camera slowly pans over to reveal Jared standing in the middle of the room.

Alex, Chloe, Evan, Kyle, Leon, and Sunny had taken off their headsets and took some time readjusting their eyes to natural light thanks to how long they all spent inside the virtual world. Chris McLean even took off his headset and got out from one of the beds which had a blanket that contained an image of a large cross on it. He stood up and is the first person to walk over to the only person who'd seen everything go down using the television in the cabin.

"Remind me to never use the Danganronpa Disease again, it really did affect me a lot more than I'd liked for it to have even if it probably made promoting the series better," Chris says to the perfectionist.

"Did you regret anything you did under the disease?" Jared asks the host with curiosity.

"Of course! I'd hate it for my son to be seeing me act that way in real life, sure I'll always want good ratings and the pain of others is a well-known pleasure of mines, but I'd prefer not going too far, after all, now that I've got a son I can't afford to go into jail again." Chris answers his question without any hesitation.

"Well, it's good to see you value your son." Jared couldn't help but smile when giving this response.

"Ironic you're the one to say that, anyway I'll make sure to let Keahi know about some bugs with entering the virtual world as admin because that disease really did turn me into Monokuma there. Speaking of which, ready to confront everyone about the trial?" Chris gets behind Jared to get into a good position to watch the events which will happen next.

"Well, I've got a lot to explain to them, so I would hope so." Jared answers and the six contestants who all voted for him finally got off their beds to confront him.

"The Mastermind, The Victim, and The Killer: Jared August Monuel." Alex stands in front of everyone to name-drop the title of the two-parter.

"Hello Alex, I'll take it you're probably not happy to see me again." Jared guesses with a small smile.

"Considering I'm not an actor, it makes sense that much would be clear to you. I'll ask you a simple question though... Why'd you do it?"

"...To make sure I'm eliminated from the competition." Jared honestly answers the question, to back this up his face looked completely serious when giving his answer.

"You wanted to be eliminated?" Alex's eyes widened when hearing this information dropped on him.

"From the very moment of Lia's elimination, my goal had always been to be sent home right after." Jared clarifies further.

"So you never intended to try winning in our deal?" Leon questions while clutching his chest.

"Yep, and to make sure you'd stop assaulting anyone else that wasn't me."

"Playing fake-hero until the end, ey?" Leon couldn't help but to chuckle at these words.

"Guess we've both got that in common then," Jared couldn't help but to remark.

"I've still got the power to beat you up." Leon goes straight to threatening the perfectionist.

"Take your shot, I'll bet you'll feel much more heroic taking others down above all else." Jared turns the brawler's own words against him.

"..." Leon moved his hands off his chest and begins thinking to himself.

"If your intent is to get eliminated, doesn't that mean your alliance might get screwed over?" Kyle couldn't help himself from being curious enough to ask this.

"After what happened today, it's safe to say that although it's the smart move to form numbers, this is the individual portion of the game where anyone could pull off anything, and also working together isn't everyone's strong suit," Jared remarks, his eyes looking at Chloe specifically.

"Don't single me out, you're the one who single-handedly took out your..." Chloe, in a rare instance, stops talking and starts to think about what she's saying.

"Me and Hannah aren't an item, all I did was tell her my plan to soon get myself out before taking out Lia which led to us coming up with the lie you all heard: That I'd done the elimination to show my devotion to Hannah. Beyond that, I definitely didn't know she was going to do what she did today." Jared clears things up in the hopes to lessen the confusion of the situation.

"So you're telling me that Hannah self-destructing her entire game wasn't something you told her to do?" Sunny asks, some skepticism could be heard within his voice.

"Wouldn't be the first time a girl threw away her chances of winning for Jared's sake, this time around it was just all in vain." Kyle casually recalls the last time he'd been on the same team as Jared.

"Someone's got a lot of favors to owe if that's the case," Evan starts off with a joke to make things light-hearted. Of course, this meant he was going to bring up something darker, "Sorry for intruding but are you even human?"

"What are you getting at?" Jared gets puzzled by this question.

"You willingly made yourself feel death b-by your own hands, What kind of person would do that?" Evan had the slightest feeling of horror at knowing what the perfectionist did.

"Although some of you might disagree, as long as I'm alive and well, virtual death doesn't have an effect like actual death and that's why I'm alright with it."

"The feelings are still there though, aren't they?!" Evan finds himself unable to comprehend this perspective to the point of raising his voice and taking a step closer to the perfectionist.

"...Yeah, I guess I'm just numb to it by this point." Jared even finds himself struggling to justify his view, but he made sure to show that he'll stand by it by staring at the officer-in-training with empty eyes. Some wind could be felt coming in from the window and it enters the room to make everything suddenly feel colder.

"Hold on a second, isn't your endgame is to hang out with Lia outside the show?!" Alex seems to have summarized the point of Jared's actions.

"Not exactly, my intention that I needed to not make obvious to make sure my plan would work, has always been to finally spend some alone time with her." Jared corrects the assumption.

"Seriously?! You're going to forcefully take herself and you out the game for some romance?!" Alex and Sunny spoke in unison at the news.

"I know it's selfish and that some people are suffering because of it... but just this once, I'm willing to just fuck over everything for myself just to be happy with someone who deserves my best. Also, it's in the hopes that me and Lia will be able to hang out at some secret base because my connections to her and Hannah will probably make me target number one for possessive followers of them." Jared cracks out another smile.

"Jared August Monuel, truly you're a source of entertainment in the best and worse ways possible." Sunny had very mixed feelings from this answer.

"It'd be nice if you didn't decide to be selfish at this point of the game because of how inconvenient it'll make things for me, but because you've become loverboy it's too late for that." Alex groans at the prospect of losing potential reliable allies in the game. Something he kept to himself is that Lia not having a choice in the matter was another reason for his annoyance, even if he knew keeping her off the crazy-creating show was for the best.

"Loverboy?" Jared tilts his head in confusion at this nickname.

"Hey Loverboy, your side-chick's gettin' up!" Chloe calls attention to the blonde girl seen much earlier.

"...Hannah..." Jared says, sighing before slowly making his way over to the heartbroken actor.

(Song #3): Ichiban no Takaramono (Original Instrumental)

Slowly, the blonde-haired person begins pulling the VR headsets off their head which reveals the person to unsurprisingly be Hannah. Some tears still had been left in her eyes and while she slowly sits up, her eyes stare down. Soon after, she bends her legs and wraps her arms around them in order to sob even more without anyone else seeing it.

"I'm s-sorry," Hannah could only say these measly words out of regret.

"...What are you sorry for?" Jared asks once he's reached her bed and sits down right by her.

"I'm sorry f-for..." Hannah pulls away from her legs but still looked away from the perfectionist, "For trying to sabotage your plans, I wanted you to stay in so b-badly that I-I went so far to stop you from elimination all because I'm sel-selfish."

"Sounds like we both were feeling selfish, so I don't think you have to apologize to me." Jared smiles at her to hopefully help cheer her up.

"I'm also sorry for failing to keep you in the game," Hannah quietly admits before wrapping her arms around the person she went so far for. Hearing this caused Jared to gasp slightly which wasn't helped by her hugging him soon after.

"Why do you w-want me here so badly? What made you try so hard to keep me in?" Jared seemed confused as he was too stunned to return the favor.

"Y-You're such a-an idiot..." Hannah quietly starts off her sentence before drifting off into silence when another thought enters her mind. Jared didn't seem to take any offense to her words but the confusion at the meaning of these words only intensified. Eventually, the girl trying to hold back her sobs finishes her sentence, "B-But... so am I..."

"What's that supposed to-?" Jared tries to get some kind of answer as his confusion only rose, a few seconds later more questions would soon pop into his mind.

The next thing he knew, he'd felt something pressed against his lips and his mind went blank for this split second as he was unable to process what was going on. Of course, the heartthrob knew all too well what's currently happening since she's the one initiating the kiss between the two of them and is now looking at no one but him. She pulled away from it before pressing her head against the pessimist's chest.

"We'll never be a couple, both of us love someone else and I know that we'd never work out. Despite all those facts, here I am still not wanting you to go away, of course, it's not really love that's making me feel this way but still, I-I... I don't want to let you go. I don't want you to leave. I don't want to be alone." Hannah says as her grip on Jared's shirt only got tighter.

"H-Hannah..." Jared couldn't find the words to say much, both out of shock and the newfound sadness he felt for the girl in question. All he could do is try shaking off the kiss and think of some kind of way to help her out.

During today's challenge, Hannah made sure to do everything in her power to make the others hate her, and knowing this made Jared feel guilty to an extent.

Knowing that she used his own plan of making everyone want to become despised without making it obvious, just to save him, made the guilt even worse for him.

"..." Jared finds himself unable to say anything for the moment and instead he wraps his arms around the girl to comfort her since nothing could change the fact he'd be out of this competition soon. No words could turn things around and he pulls her even closer to him which leads to Hannah once again bursting out into tears. All the two of them could do is accept whatever the future holds in store for them and their actions.

"D-Don't l-leave m-me!" Hannah wanted to reject the future, she wanted to reject the possibility of being alone.

"You might be my sister, but you've never treated me like one so I hope you enjoy your status as 'Queen Bee' all you want..." Her sister's words enter her mind, of course, she wanted to enjoy the status even longer.

"It might be hard, but you'll have to manage in the game by yourself..." Jared finally found himself able to speak and he pushes the heartthrob's face off his chest. The two of them stared into each other's eyes with Hannah's ones being filled with fear and denial over what was going to happen next. However the eyes of the perfectionist had something else in them, "But when it's all said and done, you'll no longer be alone because people like me will be there for you."

He gave her one last smile and some hopeful words of optimism.

"...I-I'll try," Hannah responds, wiping the tears from her eyes and sniffling now that she's calmed herself down enough to be emotionally stable now.

"Good, until we meet again then," Jared says, right after saying these words he stood up and looked over at everyone who watched all this go down.

"By the way, fuck you for trying to frame me." Sunny swiftly disregards what just happened when remembering exactly what went down earlier.

"I had to at least try fooling you all, it just turned out you were my best candidate, although I don't mind having someone like you hate me." Jared carelessly responds and walks over to nearby the door.

"You don't need to walk outside, the chain will grab you from the unsponsored hole-in-the-wall there." Chris gives him some advice, just then everyone saw the familiar-looking hole.

"..." Leon slowly turns his head while everyone slowly looked over at the person responsible for making the hole.

"Hey, Jared?" Alex changes topics and walks near the partially-broken wall to grab Jared's attention.

"Sounds like you've got some last words for me, What would you like to discuss?" Jared follows him in order to start speaking with each other. In the background, Leon, Chloe, and Kyle start up a conversation that Evan and Sunny didn't join since they were observing Alex and Jared. Hannah finally stood up from her bed but also held onto it to gain enough leg strength to walk over to everyone else.

"To start things off, Are you sure that taking you and Lia out of the competition is the right thing to do?" Alex stares off to the outside, the sun seemed to be setting and the view it provided were of broken trees and a view of the woods that surrounded them. The woods seemed much older than it really was thanks to the amount of fallen stumps, logs that seemed stuck onto the ground, and how some of the plants already were wrapped around some of the trees that were standing.

"Truth be told, I could care less about whether it's the right decision or not. I created a plan based on my beliefs and to me, the two of us would be happier off the show, which means that getting us away from it was always my goal even if it meant getting you all to hate me." Jared stared into the same woods with cracked glasses.

"Why throw your chance away of winning this game? People have sacrificed theirs to keep you in, so why throw away the opportunities they gave you?" Alex felt a little conflicted by the logic he'd been hearing.

"...Let's just say that what I'd done in the challenge, wasn't my first time attempting it." Jared's smile slowly fades away and he takes off his glasses before dropping them.

"...So that's the real reason why you didn't mind death." Alex slowly turns his head to face the victim/killer of the trial.

"That came as a result of someone, in a way, sacrificing themselves for my sake. I'm sure you can connect the dots on that one." Jared just continued to stare off with blurry vision preventing him from really seeing outside.

"I'd never expected this conversation to become this heavy, but this time you're not going to try it again in the real world, right?" Alex begins making his concern obvious when realizing the implications.

"You don't have to worry about that happening, unlike last time I've actually got other people there for me and that's why I'm glad to be selfish this time around." Jared comments before slowly recognizing what exactly he'd been looking at.

"Guess that explains quite a lot about today," Alex sighs out in relief, he then looked off in the same direction and looks out into the woods with his glasses still on. Another thought then enters his mind which is evident from a gasp escaping from his mouth, "Was your reason for being perfect because of your dad?"

"Not exactly, but it contributed to it. Speaking of dark-topics, you might want to keep an eye out for Evan in that department, like how I'd done after he questioned me what my definition of 'perfection' exactly was." Jared quickly shoots a look behind them to see Evan raising an eyebrow since he couldn't hear the conversation they were having.

"Oh right, Did you ever come up with an answer to that question?" Alex questions while remembering the events of Episode 4.

"Eh, I could care less about perfection at this point," Jared admits, shrugging his shoulders to further drive home this point.

"WHAT?! WHY?!" Alex wastes no time in loudly asking for the answer, he even grabs onto the perfectionist's(?) shoulders.

"Because if I'm only concerned with perfection any longer, I'll never be content with my life or happy because not everything has to go according to plan, and hoping it does is just asking for disappointment in life. While my plan wasn't flawless and had some hiccups along the way, it all worked out in the end and now I'll be leaving the game with less stress than I've been putting on myself all this time." Jared gently closes his eyes and the satisfied smile he's plastered on still remains.

"Looks like someone's been changin' themselves behind the scenes," Alex just chuckled and pulls away from his shoulders when taking in Jared's words. Once he steps out the way, the wind begins picking up and he watches it blow through the guy standing in front of him, "The Chain of Shame should be here soon if the wind's anything to go by."

"Yeah, just give it ten more seconds!" Sunny announces after being able to make out what Alex had said.

"Thanks for the confirmation," Alex sarcastically comments which made Jared open his eyes.

"I've finally reached the end of my road, Alex, Kyle, Evan, and Hannah, I'll be rooting for all of you. As for Leon, Sunny, and Chloe, respectfully go screw yourselves." Jared turns around to give everyone his final words.

"Jared!" Out of all the voices to speak, it was one of the people he complimented who responded first.

"Hannah?" Jared raises an eyebrow and looks over at the girl who's caught his attention, something he noticed was the smile that she showed him. The whole world suddenly became insignificant when seeing the look of joy on the heartthrob's face and he even felt a heartbeat when staring at it. Watching her give him such a pure expression made him even partially regret his decision to leave her behind. She then leans in to whisper into his ear once she's standing in front of him,

"I'll see you soon~"

When he heard her speak, he swears that he could hear his voice saying the same thing and the reason for this is because he remembers speaking these exact same words to Lia yesterday before she'd been pulled away. History soon repeats itself since the next thing Jared knew, he's being pulled off the ground, and the collar that the chain has always been connected to is already clamped around his neck. In almost no time did the eliminated contestant get pulled out of sight, confirming their elimination and leaving the heartthrob to stand there as the wind began to decelerate.

"I'd make the worst girlfriend, wouldn't I?" Hannah whispers to herself, just like what happened earlier she finally takes in the actions she's made in the heat of the moment. Although the girl still had feelings for someone else that just made her actions out of desperation even worse in her eyes, and all because she'd let her fear blind her judgment once again.

"Alex! I'd like to have a chat with you." Leon breaks away from the conversation between Chloe and Kyle to look over at Alex, whose entire body tensed up when he heard this request.

"Mind if I tag along?" Evan takes note of the request, he gulped before asking this question when memories of last night re-enter his mind. Even when considering the previous night's events, he wanted to at least make sure to moderate things between Leon and Alex.

"Are you doubting your friend's ability to not be violent?~" Leon temporarily uses the twisted and sadistic voice to question his friend.

"N-No, I'm j-just-" Evan feels himself beginning to sweat when hearing this voice, however, he still tries explaining himself with some calmness vaguely present in his voice.

"Just kidding~ After today's events I'll admit that I'm proud of you for finally pulling the trigger at long last! You've taken your first step towards becoming the hero you want to be and out of respect, I'll make sure to not attack Alex during our talk." Leon completely changes his tone and instead he begins to sound cheerful.

"Hey! Are you rewarding him for shooting someone?!" Alex slowly turns around to face the brawler.

"I'm rewarding him for taking down a threat, even if it was in the virtual world it means he's on the right road I've made for him," Leon states matter-of-factly with his eyes closed.

"Y-You're not going to h-hurt him?" Evan grew a smile and seems to be happy with the results of his actions.

"Indeed, when your enemies are eliminated then it helps your friends become safer-" Leon starts to explain how today connects to what he's trying to teach Evan.

"Let's go." Alex walks over to the brawler and stands in front of him to say these two words, unlike before he seemed to barely have any fear in front of the person that threatened him last night. Leon raised an eyebrow while looking down at the non-stereotyped contestant who stands before him, a smile of interest and joy soon formed as he noticed a look in the other contestant's eyes. Evan didn't seem to be paying attention to any of this since he's got his eyes closed and looks to be thinking to himself about what's been said to him.

"If you insist, then let us make our way to a closed-off area!" Leon declares and Alex followed him, the two of them exiting through the hole thanks to it being a bigger and easier way to exit the cabin than the door.

Deciding that he had nothing left to do, Chris walked out the place through the door since the cameras were going to capture the next chain of events anyway and he figured it'd be safer to view things that way. When he left the place, it didn't take long for his prediction to become true.

"Hey everyone-" Hannah walks over to everyone else inside the place to speak with them, the only people left were Sunny, Evan, Chloe, and Kyle who all faced her.

"Hey Hannah, remind me to never even consider working with you ever again." Sunny is the first person to give a not-so-warm welcome to the girl who he'd verbally argued with earlier.

"I'm sorry f-for trying to frame y-you-" Hannah begins to look down in shame.

"For someone who did so much smack-talk today, you sure fracture easily when the tables are turned~" Chloe seems to take joy in seeing the girl who she views as a traitor feel bad for her actions.

"Didn't you b-betray Ingrid?!" Hannah abruptly glares at the drummer and lashes out with these words.

"What about me then? Why didn't you get involved when Leon had tried convincing me to shoot him, not knowing that the gun had no bullets in them?" Evan asks, making sure to look away to remember what happened on the night when Hannah chose to not do anything.

"What was I supposed to do?!" Hannah bursts out with her frustration and desperation becoming more obvious with each response.

"Something, it would've been better than nothing, and the fact you didn't tell anyone else about the incident after it happened makes me disappointed in you," Evan answers, his body and voice not budging.

"This coming from the guy who was about to let his friend get attacked earlier?!"

"Don't use me to justify your own actions, and besides, unlike you, I've learned from the incident and now know to get involved no matter my strength in the matter." Evan finally looks at the girl with some sadness in his eyes.

"The only reason you even landed your shot on Sunny was because of me! So don't you take credit for my actions~" Hannah uses a familiar voice to passive-aggressively remind him what happened.

"..." Evan seems to stop moving and speaking completely at hearing the voice.

"Oh, you-!" Chloe wastes no time trying to get herself back into the conversation, however, this plan is foiled fairly quickly.

"Don't speak, just watch and observe." Sunny had placed a hand over the drummer's mouth, in contrast to everyone else in the room, he had a smirk and seems to be pleased with what's transpiring now.

"How about you two just calm down? If things escalate too much, then-" Kyle steps in-between Evan and Hannah in the hopes of playing peacekeeper.

"Then what? We'll do something else that your brain will forget? Also, it's quite convenient you're only stepping in when I'm the one winning, perhaps you're a worse person than we all expected and that your mom did the right thing by abandoning your family~" Hannah simply channels her anger into verbally attacking the baseball-player.

"Please don't bring my mom into this." Kyle pleads, rather than getting angry he looks over at Hannah with eyes practically begging her to drop the topic.

"Why shouldn't I? All you're doing is supporting people who are trying to ostracize me and make me feel bad for following my heart, so, as far as I'm concerned you're just as bad as they are. In fact, how about we bring your dad into this, How would he feel about you?~" Hannah attempts to further provoke him, when making her speech she makes sure to stand centimeters away from him to make sure every single breath that came out her mouth with each word, would be felt physically and mentally by him.

"I'm not against you, all I'm trying to do is make sure you're not making things deadly because you seemed too willing to do it earlier, so don't try guilt-tripping me into feeling like I've chosen a side. Also can you please stop bringing up my family? They've got nothing to do with any of this." Kyle raises his voice somewhat but this is the only reaction that her words seem to have made him feel.

"...You know it's a real shame, I'd figured even with your memories erased you'd remember our friendship but that doesn't seem to be the case now, does it? Right, because you forgot it~ And one day you'll be forgotten, dying in a fire like the irrelevant piece of crap you are~" Hannah doesn't hold anything back and chooses to lie directly in order to get under his skin.

"...I-I'm so-sorry!" Kyle grabs onto his head and begins yelling, it looks like her words have finally gotten to him and he's even stumbling around the place.

This reaction finally prompted another person to get involved.

"Cut that out! Kyle doesn't deserve to be treated like that by anyone!" Evan begins storming up to her with clenched fists.

"What are you going to do? Are you going to bully me more by-?"

POW!

Before her sentence could finish, Hannah's face gets smashed in by a punch delivered by Evan which knocks her onto the floor.

"DO YOU THINK I'M ENJOYING THIS?!" Evan squeezed his fists even more and he stares at the girl he knocked down with contempt, pity, and frustration.

Hannah slowly rubbed her face and moves her head to stare up at the person standing above her. She couldn't speak for the time being which meant she could only lay down and listen to the officer-in-training's words.

"Do you think I don't know how you feel like?! I've been beaten down, bullied, and left alone countless times before coming onto this show!" Evan slowly spreads out his hands and looked down at them.

Hannah couldn't help but to feel a little guilty, and she looks at the ground while images of the sharpshooter going through abuse enter her thoughts.

"Most of the people who did those things to me did it because I wanted to become a cop just like my parents, they wanted revenge for what other cops had done to their relatives and I'd became the subject of that anger." Evan shuts his eyes to remember what he went through.

Hannah notices this, at this point, she knew that talking would be pointless and that this topic is something that the officer-in-training takes seriously.

"Other kids did many things to me and so if you think what happened is awful, then you'd probably do even worse things to yourself than what I'd done." Evan looks over at his right hand which he just used to deliver the punch.

Hannah turns her attention to the same hand and her eyes glued onto the scars that appeared all too often on it.

"Believe me, I'd rather avoid putting you down but if you're going to continue taking down people I've learned to genuinely care for then there's no choice for me but to take you down. Protecting everyone is impossible especially when people like you would never want something like that, so instead, I'll settle on the people closest to me because I'd love to see them happy over ungrateful brats who don't know the first thing about bullying." Evan resorts to using a normal yet resentful voice, he wasn't yelling as he did earlier but that didn't make his words any less harsh.

Hannah looks around the room to see that Kyle had stopped stumbling and now is watching the situation alongside Sunny and Chloe.

"You're lashing out but that doesn't give you the right to go after everyone, remember that you made the decision knowing full well that our reactions wouldn't be forgiving. In the end, this reaction just sealed your fate further and dug your hole even deeper than it had been before, and because of that, I can't forgive you for the rest of the game. I'm not sure how everyone else feels but I'm tired out and feel like sleeping, if you feel like comforting Hannah then go on ahead." Evan finishes the 'conversation' and goes over to his bed.

Hannah watched him do this before turning her attention to everyone else.

"Fergy would be ashamed of you if he was still around." Chloe just takes one more jab at the already-downed girl before going to her bed.

Hannah grits her teeth and glares at the drummer when hearing her words, but she still couldn't get up to chase after her.

"If we were friends before, that friendship's dead now." Kyle walks past with these words to say like always he didn't sound relatively upset or angered, just disappointed.

Hannah felt her anger get snapped away at these words, she knew now that any chances of befriending the baseball player or working with him had just gone out the window. Her eyes didn't look at him and instead, they went over to the last person that has yet to walk away, Sunny Persnisky.

"Why do you pawns let your emotions dictate so much of your decisions? It seems like a flaw that people like me take advantage of, although it looks like I didn't need to do anything to let you destroy your own game." Sunny laughs a little because he did absolutely nothing during the argument except say one line.

Hannah attempts to open her mouth so she could speak but her entire body suddenly feels heavy and her eyes began to slowly close before she could say anything. Watching this made Sunny get onto his knees before giving the soon-to-be-unconscious girl some final words by leaning in to whisper.

"Now that you've turned yourself into the main target, How's it feel to have all the advantages you've had before striped away all because your deceiving nature has finally been realized?~" Sunny couldn't be more happy about the situation which everyone now finds themselves in which is illustrated by the satisfied smile he's wearing.

Finally, Hannah's head hits the ground and she finally loses consciousness. This miserable day had finally ended for her.

Although the camera focused on the unconscious person, Sunny didn't seem to care about this and instead makes himself the last person to leave her to her own devices. By the time he's walked away the screen shows him laying on his own bed, his head facing the filming object because he had some last words for it which it's able to pick up,

"Looks like a shining future is waiting for me, And I know it'll continue to shine forever~" He vaguely declares before turning away from the screen to get some sleep.

Now that everything had finally been resolved for the time being inside the cabin, the next logical step is to show the conversation about to take place between the two contestants who left it. Leon treated this stroll casually and although the sun had completely set by now, there were nearby fireflies that caught his eyes and he went over to the general direction since the creatures allowed for enough light for a scene. Alex stood there and watched the many little insects with so amazement in his eyes thanks to how many there were, this joy swiftly goes away when he looks back at the person leading the way.

Things between the two of them were tense to say the least and although they both stood in the middle of a bunch of fireflies inside the grass surrounding them, that didn't help calm things between them.

Leon and Alex turned to face each other while standing on the dirt surrounded by the grass, to create lighting to calm things down, the fireflies actually shined yellow which off-setted the mood both people had right now.

Only thing which could be heard initially are the sounds of the night and insects which came out, due to how rainy the past few nights had been and the contestants focusing on the game they didn't get to often hear these normal noises. Both of them seemed to take notes of the noises around them and the cause of their silence were out of respect for a noise they both hadn't heard in so long.

"My friend usually enjoyed quiet places and the simpler things that life has to offer, now that I've been on this show I understand why now." Leon surprisingly enough comments on the moment, for once he gave off a perfectly normal smile.

"At times it's needed, I usually like it when I'm drawing since it allows me to take in the scenery and have some time to myself." Alex kept his eyes closed and the cold wind lightly graced him while he remembers his time away from the show.

For the time being, the two of them just enjoyed the calmness which they'd held dearly now that they've gone through so much pain and chaos.

One of them liked it because of how it reminded them of their friends who they now can relate to on some degree.

The other one liked it because they were familiar with it and just wanted to remember the upsides to having such a rare environment.

.

.

.

.

.

After taking the time to let the moment sink in, Alex and Leon opened their eyes because at the end of the day they were still inside a game that mattered even more than the peaceful moments in life. In a few seconds, they both had finished letting the tranquility sink in because that wasn't the purpose for them going on this mini-trip. Each of them understood the mood and it seemed that fireflies did too since the yellow lighting turned red in an instant.

"You ready yet?" Leon spoke first once again.

"I am. Let's get to chatting," Alex simply answered.

After the exchanging of words, the two of them began their proper conversation with one another.

"Today, you surprised me during the challenge." Leon admits, letting out a sigh when saying this.

"In a good way, right?" Alex double-checks, making sure to adjust his glasses properly.

"Why of course it's in a good way, you helped clear everyone's suspicions of me and figured out who the real culprit turned out to be." Leon partially looks down in shame over the lack of help he provided during the trial.

"It definitely wasn't the easiest thing to solve but figuring out the case was my priority, so naturally I just kept thinking about it all until it clicked. Though the results of today weren't the best for my game." Alex recalls, letting out a sigh of his own.

"Well things worked out fine for me, but I'll admit a part of me felt disappointed that the faker only competed against me to assure his elimination and that he didn't even try putting up a fight. Unfortunately his elimination also gave me something to think about." Leon scowled slightly when admitting this.

"What kind of thoughts did you get by his final words?"

"Taking down other people is something that's required to become someone worthy of fighting for the people, some people can't be redeemed like Sunny and need to be stopped before they go too far." Leon looks at the broken branches and fallen trees that were made last night when beginning to explain himself.

"Speaking of who, I'm surprised you guys haven't voted him off yet."

"Jared sorta caught my interest more, and aside from his precognition, Sunny's someone I've got the ability to beat up if he ever tries pulling something like he did before." Leon casually dismisses, shrugging at the slight possibility of the delinquent being a threat.

"Underestimating him isn't exactly the smartest thing to do, but for now he can be placed on the back-burner since he's probably not important to what you wanted to inform me about." Alex shuts his eyes which helped him continue to speak logically and casually.

"I've been thinking about how 'heroic' it really is to physically beat down your opponents and standing here, I realize that always resorting to violence is meaningless and doesn't work for everyone," Leon admits, smiling slightly at all the memories of beating up other people played in his mind.

"...Why exactly do you choose violence so often? You've explained that some people can't be reasoned with but what's so different about getting physical compared in which that's the only way to deal with specific people?"

"Some people believe they're invincible and that consequences won't ever happen to them because of their strength or status. What do you think is the best way to break an obviously false notion like that?" Leon's smile only got wider when giving his question-answer.

"Make them realize how wrong they are by putting them into their places so they'll avoid going through the same mental and physical punishment you delivered them which means they're going to do different things to avoid the same fate." Alex picks up on the method to Leon's madness quickly, but sweat began to show on his face.

"Fear can be a useful tool to use against anyone who feels it, after all, it's human nature to want to avoid something at any cost..." Leon's smile goes away and he stares at the moon above.

The stop in his sentence made Alex slowly open his eyes before observing the look of reconsideration on the brawler's face.

"What if some people didn't go by those same beliefs? Jared is undeniably not a hero and his actions forcing everyone to vote him off was inconsiderate towards the others who for some reason still cared for him. One thing which made me avoid punishing him is how useless it turned out to be in the end, even when I'd beaten him down like so many others he didn't seem all that affected by it." Leon reminisces, his eyes continuing to look at the moon.

"It's not like logic was on his mind at that moment, but treating him like some random criminal on the street never was going to work and although his actions do annoy me to some extent I'm glad he didn't break from your assault." Alex finds enough confidence to say these words, the lighting slowly shifted into turning blue and the cold wind swept through him.

"What made things worse is that he made me second-guess myself at that moment because there's either people who are with you or against you... but do the people against me all deserve my worse? How good am I really if all enemies are treated the same way?" Leon didn't seem to react much beyond his words since he remained a statue, staring at the moon which had a cloud in the sky slowly start covering it.

"You've got a black-and-white view on these sort of topics, don't you? When someone's your enemy previous tactics can work, but keep in mind that every person is an entirely different entity who might agree with you to some degree. Violence won't always be a solution and knowing that you're trying to make Evan feel good for doing the crap you do for the sake of heroism is where I take issue with you." Alex takes the time to be blunt in his words and not hold much back.

"All I'm doing is showing him the lengths he'll have to go through as an officer to uphold the law, Unless if you're indicating you'd rather keep him shelter from the harsh realities of the world?" Leon finally gives a reaction, in the form of looking at Alex.

"N-No..." Alex takes a step back but continues to stand in the same place he's been in this entire time, even with the brawler's eyes directed towards him and him only. "There are times when your solution is viable as villainous as the actions really are, but morality's irrelevant in the real world."

"There are only your beliefs and the people who go against it, I'm sure that my thinking is the way down the right path but there's others who become my enemies because they're willing to contest is so adamantly." Leon somewhat agrees with the sentiment.

"But if you're only showing him and rewarding him for going to extreme measures, then how do you think he'll handle every situation going forward?" Alex takes his foot out from behind and firmly puts it in front of him.

"...The only way I taught him, which means he'll eventually end up in the same position I'm in." Leon realizes, once again the fireflies change their color but this time it's to a variation of blue, turquoise.

"Evan's attachment and want to make up for his self-guilt over not helping you out is one of the worst things for me because that means my closest ally isn't going to be on my side, so the best way to work around that is to make sure I'll give you enough advice to improve yourselves."

"You're planning to help us out? Surely you must know how bad of an idea that is."

"Evan's happiness is one of my top priorities and honestly with all the drama happening around the island, I'd rather go with an option that wouldn't require us to get into another fight or argument. Believe me, I've seen enough of those happen over Discord servers where people always held grudges, rather than avoiding drama they always 'spilled the tea' to bring someone else down, and people all believe they're correct over there because of people joining along the bandwagon they created or because their spite for other people is that strong." Alex felt his left eye twitch at all the memories.

"That just sounds like high school to me. But I'll agree with the sentiment, Fuck this 24/7 internet spew of trivia and celebrity bullshit!" Leon completely misses the point of what was just said.

"You completely missed the point of what I just said, I'm just trying to peacefully approach this situation instead of going to down a more confrontational route like everyone else has been doing," Alex explains and he raises his hands to visually support his point.

"...That ties into what I'd been pondering, maybe it'll be better for me trying to solve things with my words like what you'd done today because honestly, it was pretty cool what you did." Leon gives a normal smile to the person he's complimenting.

"Excellent, it sounds like we're both planning the same thing, so maybe we could make a... t-truce for the time being?" Alex nervously suggests by putting out his right hand.

"Well I do owe you for being the hero of the day during the trial and you've never done anything too wrong so I don't see why not." Leon accepts the offer and grabs onto Alex's hand to shake it.

"I'M W-WEAK! DON'T S-SQUEEZE IT TOO H-HARD!" Alex seems to already be in pain and he pleads out while trying to pull his hand out of the brawler's grip.

"Nah~" Alex recognized the voice immediately and looks up with widened eyes at The Monsterheart Brawler.

'W-W-WHYYYYYYYY!?' Alex internally cried at coming face-to-face with the same eyes that threatened him yesterday.

"I'll uphold my promise to not attack you, but that doesn't mean I'm letting you off easy~" Leon keeps holding onto the non-stereotyped contestant's hand before slowly pulling him off the ground.

"S-S-STOOOP!" Alex couldn't do anything but beg for the pain to stop.

"I'm taking it easy on you and you're already in this much pain? Boy, you are weak, aren't you?~" Leon laughed a little at how fragile the person in front of him seemed to be.

"I-I'M A-ALL BRIANS! NOT B-BRAWNS!" Alex explains, swigging his legs around since they were off the ground.

"Fair point. Think of this as a warning though, if you even try going against me then I'll make sure your vision isn't the only thing that'll be missing~" Leon grits his teeth and he makes sure to stare daggers into the soul of the person he's hanging off the ground.

"I-I understand." Alex briefly seems to stop screaming in pain when looking into the Monsterheart's eyes, with the situation made clear to him he understood what's being implied and felt fear which halted any pain he could be feeling.

"Glad we've got that settled then~" Leon ends his threatening by letting go of Alex who landed on his feet. The conversation then ended right there since he walked past Alex soon after without any care for the actions he just committed but he close his eyes. Even if it seemed weird, he was genuinely planning to take today's advice into the future and disappeared into the night with these thoughts in mind.

"..." Alex clutched onto his right hand and the fireflies switched colors once again, but this time they lit the mood with the color red.

"These remote-controlled fireflies are the best." Chris walks up from behind Alex who swiftly got onto his feet and looked at the host.

"These fireflies are robotic? Just like the ones in Pahkitew?" Alex questioned as he looked around at the creature surrounding them.

"Of course, in fact, this entire island is controlled entirely by me and the staff. Don't worry though, we've got enough people who can take beatings that will prevent another Scarlett incident from happening... wow, it's been a long time since I've said that godforsaken name." Chris turns his attention towards the sky and watches the clouds completely cover the full moon.

"Whatever happened to her?" Alex asks out of curiosity.

"...She's dead now, but it happens in life so it's really not that big of a deal, especially since no one really misses her." Chris closes his eyes to bluntly answer the question.

"Speaking of death-" Chris heard the contestant respond which made him open his eyes.

Leon suddenly appeared and Alex ducks without even looking which allows the brawler to swing a punch that connects with Chris's face and launched him through multiple trees. Both contestants looked on with satisfied smiles on each of their faces, if there was anything this cast could agree on it's that the host definitely got on their bad sides in today's challenge.

"That's for making me feel the pain of getting impaled by spears!" Leon yells out before turning around and disappearing into the woods once more.

"You deserve that for virtually blowing me up and killing me temporarily," Alex remarks, watching the host suffering at least this much pain for all he's done made him feel satisfied that it happened. Rather than walking back to the cabin, he notices a drawing book that had a pencil inside of it which had been laying beside the TV-remote-looking object, which meant that both of them probably fell off of Chris when he'd gotten decked. It didn't take long for him to use the remote to change the fireflies into shining yellow and to sit by a not-fallen tree.

'Hey Lily, hope you don't mind me drawing you because now it's time to draw.' Alex confidently declares in his mind before preparing his pencil and opening up the drawing book to do his thing.

Shawn Mendes-In My Blood

"Help me, It's like the walls are caving in."

Jared walks around a park with the entire place being colorless.

"Sometimes I feel like giving up, No medicine is strong enough."

Even though the place seemed empty, he was singing the song with closed eyes.

"Someone help me."

Blue raindrops started to land on him.

"I'm crawling in my skin."

Even with this, he doesn't use his umbrella.

"Sometimes I feel like giving up, but I just can't-"

His footsteps eventually stop when he reached a water fountain.

"It isn't In My Blood."

On the other side of this fountain, he noticed a sobbing girl.

"It isn't In My Blood!"

Now, he picks up his umbrella and uses it to cover himself from the rain.

*Song Skip*

"Help me, It's like the walls are caving in."

He didn't stop there and began walking over to the girl.

"Sometimes I feel like giving up, but I just can't-"

Once he stood in front of the girl he reached out a hand to her.

"It isn't In My Blood."

The environment's colors pop into existence and everything turns alive.

"It isn't In My Blood! (Oooooh!)"

Jared smiled down at the girl and seemed completely dry to the rain which poured around them.

"It isn't In My Blood-"

Finally, the girl removes her hands from her face.

"I need somebody now!"

Her green eyes met his black eyes.

"It isn't In My Blood-"

Lia reaches out and accepts the hand offer.

"I need somebody now."

Jared pulls her off the ground and takes her under his umbrella.

"It isn't In My Blood."

Jared and Lia embraced under the umbrella and hugged each other, the rain no longer mattered to them and they both seemed happy with this moment. The camera slowly looked away from the two of them beneath the cloudy skies and showed a ray of light shining in the middle of the rainy weather surrounding them. After showing this the screen fades to black in order to end this outro.

Total Drama: Move Along

Remaining Contestants:

The Final Seven: Alex Jones, Chloe Broderick, Evan Herbert, Hannah Jordan, Kahlin Mora, Leon Salvatore, and Sunny Persnisky.

Eliminated Contestants:

Kennedy (1st), Li (2nd), Vince (3rd), Jackie (4th), Brooke (5th), Rae (6th), Fergy (7th), Rainy (8th), Ciara (9th), Ingrid (10th), Jun (11th), Miriam (12th), Lia (13th), and Jared (14th).

Elimination Preventing Objects:

The Hidden Safety Necklace: Played by Fergy

The Hidden Invincibility Statue: Played by Jared (Fake Played by Jun)

The Hidden Immunity Idol: Played by Jared

Here we go with another creator to apologize to, this time it's aesthetic nightmare (formerly known as Candela Monsoon) for eliminating Jared August Monuel. In one of my earlier Review Responses I essentially confirmed he wasn't going to win to avoid having any creators win more than one story of mine, now this won't be a permanent rule and the day may come where I'll contradict this but for the time being he wasn't ever really planned to win this season, however I knew I wanted to keep him around long enough to conclude his story. Writing him was an absolute blast for me which is obvious and that's another reason he stuck around for so long, I'd even considered keeping him until the final four but decided against that because I've always planned for Lia and him to either be eliminated together or back-to-back because of how their stories really did center around one another. Essentially, I eliminated him here because this was the best time to end his story in my eyes and as for the in-story reasons for his elimination... well there's an entire section in the story which explains it.

...Yeah, it's been three months since I've last updated and seeing me update so rarely is frustrating even me since before I'd been able to at least get multiple chapters out in a month. Time really does change people though, and 2022 has been... a roller coaster to say the least where stuff have happened and I'm just trying to Move Along (ironic, I know) even if it's been tough doing so I'm just hoping that things will calm down and that I'll be more in the mood to continue this story because I'm hoping to finish this story sooner rather than later.

Anyways, combining the two parts of these two episodes create my longest episode yet since this one episode is 40K+ words long! And as you can tell I really do love the Danganronpa series and this episode has been planned to happen since Episode 3, so it was basically destined to happen because I think it compliments Total Drama really well especially with their hosts (which is always why I turned Chris into "McLeanokuma"). Like always I'll leave the link to this story's Discord server here: discord . gg / MJ8qF9v (Just take away the spaces)

To continue the trend, here's the Questions of the Chapter!:

(For those with OCs): Did you think your character acted in-character during the trial?

(For those without OCs): Do you enjoy these multi-parters?

There's nothing much more to say aside from: Thank you for the people still reading this story, it's probably not the best and is sloppy at points but I'll always appreciate you taking time out of your busy day to read this.

Peace Out.