Danganronpa MV 3: At Destiny's Edge

by Otterplay

Sixteen Ultimate Students wake up in the remnants of a long abandoned city only to find out they are going to be forced into a killing game. What choices will they end up making. And will it even matter, or is there something bigger at play here?

5. Chapter 2: Savagery & Death -Deadly Life

I… I was at a loss for words. What. What am I looking at? I let out a small shriek upon seeing Bella's body. Nowaynowaynoway!

"C-calm down!" Stephan tried to warn me. But it was too late, I was already too loud.

Some of the animals eating her quickly turned towards us, before pouncing. I thought this was the end for us too, but Serena made quick work of them.

"There, that wasn't that bad…" She mumbled to herself.

Gee, thanks. Sarcasm intended. That was very bad!

Stephan walked over to Bella's corpse, a small frown forming on his face. Then, the familiar sound came along.

.

Ding Dong! Bing Bong! Ding Dong! Bing Bong!

.

The intercom lit up, but there was no screen to go with it. I guess we were in a forest after all. "A body has been discovered!" Monokuma announced to the whole city. "After a short amount of time, a class trial will be held. Please gather at Serena's Ultimate Lab."

By now, everyone was probably already freaking out. And probably trying to see who was missing. Everyone was still sleeping when we left, so we might be in the running for people who've died, according to them.

Or even suspects.

It wasn't long before everyone had gathered, obviously in a hurry.

Wait… something just crossed my mind. I'd have to ask about it later…

"KYAAAAAAAAAAA!" Lily screamed out, covering her mouth. "B-Bella!" She rushed over to the body. "W-who would do something like this?!"

Caren had her mouth covered. "Why would… This wasn't the animals that killed her…?"

"If the animals killed her, then that means that none of us did it." Jack had his arms crossed.

Suddenly.

Bear.

"Puhuhuhuhuhuhu!" He covered his mouth as he laughed. "Is that what you think?"

"W-well…" The critic started to lose some edge. "It wouldn't be fair if one of us were deemed the blackened when the victim was killed by animals."

The bear let out another laugher. "Unless someone left her to die after doing something to her. In which case, they would be responsible."

"B-but…" Lily started to say. She had a few tears rolling down her face. "Who would just leave her to die!"

"That's what you are gonna find out!" Monokuma let out another laugh. "Isn't this fun?"

"Say…" Robin stood in front of him. "You've been rather absent as of late. You didn't even formally give us the motive either."

"Eep!" The bear took a few steps back. "Well, I'm a busy man! Setting up this motive was no easy task you know!"

Enima crossed her arms. "Seems oddly suspicious."

"It is not!" He declared. "Just… do what you always do and start investigating."

Robin looked at him again. "Can we have the Monokuma File?"

"Right!" Monokuma said, pulling out a tablet. "Read it to your heart's content."

I grabbed it, opening it.

.

Monokuma File #2

.

The victim this time is Bella Fiore, the Ultimate Ecologist. She died at approximately 10:43 PM last night. She suffered a broken right arm, and a small fracture on her head. Cause of death is unknown. But it was painful.

.

Lily put her hands on her hips. "Was that last part really necessary?"

"Absolutely!" The bear said. "Now hurry up and get to investigating. I've got to clean up this mess." He pointed at all the vines. "Hopefully when I come back, someone else turns up dead."

The florist looked ready to kick Monokuma, but Caren held her back. "Calm down…" She said with a sad expression.

I looked back at Bella. Another one of us had died… But why did it have to be someone sweet like Bella…?

Historia walked up to me. "Well, I guess we better get started." She let out a small sigh. "I don't like getting near dead bodies though…" She shivered slightly.

"Well, I'm going near it…" I told her as I approached it. "Bella…" I mumbled to myself, sadly.

The first thing on note was that her right arm was very injured. In fact, you could see a bit of bone sticking out of it. What the hell happened to her to cause this? This couldn't be what killed her, or else the cause of death wouldn't have been written as unknown. Why write it down as unknown in the first place? Does he want us to figure that out on our own? Bullshit if you ask me.

Historia shivered slightly. "Seriously… that's just… Ugh…" She covered her eyes slightly. "Maybe I should go help somewhere else."

I shook my head. "You'll be staying here to help me out."

This got a pout from her. Why say you are going to follow me if you are going to bail in the first ten seconds.

I looked at her legs, trying to see anything wrong with them. But they seemed fine. Except for the fact that her shoes seemed to be in rough shape. But I don't quite know what that could mean.

I decided to flip her over, just to see the other side, and her left hand seemed to swelled up slightly. And a little warm. Maybe she hit it somewhere hard and it swelled up? Her face also seems to be in immense pain. Monokuma was right, it was painful. So whatever death she faced, it wasn't instant.

"Hmm…" Historia hummed to herself, looking at this.

I turned to look at her. "Do you have any ideas?"

She shook her head. "None at all."

Thanks… "Let's go see what the others are doing." I started to walk away. There were a few questions I wanted to ask this morning…

Serena seemed to be nearby, and while I didn't need to ask her this, I still felt it was best to talk to her, since animals were involved, seemingly. "Hey, what do you think about all of this?"

"It's a shame that another death had to occur like this. It's even more of a shame that I could have prevented it, had I been here…" She sighed sadly, gripping her bow tightly.

I frowned too. "It's hard to know if being there would have made a difference… We don't know exactly how she died… so…"

Serena tilted her head to the side. "You are right, the animals could have come after. But still! I could have been there to save her…!"

"Yes… I understand that feeling…" Although even if I was there, it probably wouldn't have changed anything…

Historia shook her head. "We don't have time to just sit here and do nothing but talk about what we could have done. What happened, happened. So let's view this with a little more realism."

I quickly averted my gaze from her. She was right, but I wasn't going to say that. "Well, anything you could tell us about the animals?"

"Well, they definitely don't belong here. I can tell you that much. They don't live in the forest biome. But… I don't know where Monokuma could have hidden them to release them on us…"

That did raise an intriguing question on where did the animals come from, but I did have some ideas on where they could have come from.

"Anything else to say about them?" I asked, trying to get as much information as I could possibly get.

After a long silence, she looked back over at me. "They were easy to kill."

"Thanks…" Well, that didn't get me much information except that they don't belong here.

I guess I should get going.

"Hey!" A voice called out from above me. Looking up, I met face to face with Stephan, who was hanging upside down by his legs from a tree.

"Can I… help you?" I looked at him.

"Actually, I was going to help you out." He reached out his hand to me.

"I'm not grabbing your hand…" I deadpanned.

But Stephan didn't care about what I wanted. He grabbed my hand anyways and pulled me up onto the tree above. "Here we go!"

"Stephan!" I called out. "Stop taking me to high places!"

He simply laughed at my misery. "It'll be fine!" He then picked me up and started jumping from branch to branch.

"Why are we going up here?" I asked him, looking around.

He stopped on a branch further up. "There's some interesting things I've found." He placed me down on the branch, making me almost slip.

"H-hey! I don't want to be up here!" I almost fell off. Thinking quickly, I held onto him.

"Hey, at least buy me dinner…" He mumbled as he guided me over to the center of the tree.

On it, was a blood stain. "Now, this could be from an animal… or from…"

"It has to be an animal, there's no way Bella would have made it this far up." I glanced down, feeling myself shrink down. "E-especially if we are this high up, and she's so small."

He snapped his fingers. "You're probably right, I just thought it was best to show you anyways. Now, it's time to go down." And without much thinking, he just slid off the branch with me.

I screamed out in fear, but because of his little hook on a rope we managed to get down safely. Thankfully.

"Did you have fun?" Historia had a hand on her hip.

I quickly shook my head. "I think I'm nauseous…"

"It wasn't that bad!" Stephan tried to tell me. Oh, it was that bad. Me and heights just do not mix well together.

"I think that's all we need to explore here…" I mumbled. Although maybe I should stop by again later with more people. Everyone else seemed to have stopped by different spots of interest. After letting out another sigh, I headed off towards the entrance to this lab.

Of course, I saw Daniella still hanging around the knives. Seriously. Can't she choose a different hobby? "Hey Daniella…" I said, approaching her.

She slowly turned over to me, giving me a small smile. "Good morning." There's nothing good about this morning, trust me. "An awful thing to have happened to Bella." She frowned slightly, which was more emotions I normally saw from her, so I guess that's an up?

I nodded. "Yeah… To lose another one…" I still wasn't completely over the loss of Marcus… But in this place, we just had to accept it…

"I found something of interest." She told me, turning her attention to the knives.

"Oh?" I walked over to the display, but they all seemed like knives. "Yeah… They are just knives. Unless you are telling me knives are interesting…"

Historia tilted her head slightly. "Well, they are somewhat interesting."

The secretary let out a small sigh. "No no…" She walked over to one of them, grabbing it. "I mean this one has some wood chips on it, so it would have to be used recently, right?"

I grabbed it from her, examining it. She was right, there was some residue of something on there. It's likely that this had been used. "Interesting…" I looked it over some more. I better remember this.

"Should we check to see if any of the traps were messed with?" Historia asked, heading over to where they were. It was probably a good idea, so I went there.

When we got there, however, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary except maybe the ones missing that Serena used already. There was even inventory that she kept, and nothing seemed to be missing… I looked at it some more before shaking my head.

"Hmm…" Jack was humming in thought. I didn't even notice him next to us. "Why is there paint here?" He walked over to some cans that were just there. "Empty, odd, if you ask me…" He brought them over to us, placing it on the table.

"Yeah, I fail to see how paint is going to be involved in this murder ploy." I deadpanned. Maybe in one of your many stories, but…

Jack glanced away. "Yes, but still, it was used for something. And until we get actual proof on what it was, I'll assume it's related to the murder."

There was just no arguing with this one. Might as well take note of it.

That seemed to be pretty much most of what was in here, so I should move on to other places.

The other places I should check out are… right. Where the motive originated from! The green house! "We should go investigate Lily's Ultimate Lab." I told Historia, who simply nodded at me.

It was a bit of a walk, but we soon made it there. The place was still overrun by vines, and the likes. But it was much easier to get in now that Cameron had broken a pane of glass. Heading inside, I saw a few people. Lily was walking around, freaking out slightly. "This can't be…" She mumbled to herself.

I approached her, tapping on her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?!" She turned to look at me. "Bella is dead! That's what's wrong!"

Well… yeah… "I meant, what are you freaking out about right now."

"O-oh!" She turned towards the center table. "This was where some dangerous flowers were kept, but they are all gone…" She mumbled.

"Why did you bother keeping stuff like that in a setting like this?" Historia put her hands on her hip, clearly angry.

The florist blinked a few times. "They were pretty." I'll give her that. They were indeed beautiful.

"What kind of dangerous flowers were they, again?" I asked, already dreading the answer.

"Just… Just a few poisonous ones. But not super poisonous! Only mildly so." She tried to justify herself.

Historia and I gave each other such annoyed looks before shaking our head. "Still…" She said. "You should have gotten rid of them. They were pretty much a danger to everyone else!"

"Eep!" She held her arms against her chest. "But like I said, they were so pretty."

This is a lost cause… I sighed. "How poisonous were they? Could they still be grabbed?"

"Well… yeah, if you care for them carefully, it should be fine. If anything, it's only the contents of the flowers themselves…" She seemed to have toned down a bit. "But it's possible someone could have used them…"

I'd better take note of this right now.

Next person in the room was Caren, who was walking around. She was holding her hands together, letting out a small sigh. "She's really gone…"

Right, the three of them formed a small group, sometimes accompanied by Serena, although she was very reluctant to do so. "It's going to be alright, we'll find the killer." A thought crossed my mind. "Say, how did you all get here?"

The babysitter tilted her head. "What do you mean? I just walked here."

Alright, being too vague. "I meant how did you leave the temple?"

Caren blinked a few times. "We walked out."

Alright, I don't feel like much of an idiot again. "I meant what about the traps. Stephan and Serena were with me, so you were all on your own, yet you still managed to get out of there without any problems."

Finally realizing what I meant, she rubbed her neck. "I don't really know, we just kinda followed Robin out."

I guess Robin had learned about where some of the traps were. But still, he wouldn't know exactly where the traps Serena set up would be. I'd have to ask him about it when I see him.

"Oh! I found a glove earlier"

"Did you… take it?" Historia asked her.

Caren looked away. "N-no… I didn't think about it at the time… It was just a single one..."

"Just the one? Where did you find it?" I asked her.

"Well, it was in the forest, just by a tree. But there didn't seem to be any other ones, so I ignored it."

"Who would need just one glove?" Historia pointed out.

I bit my thumb. Didn't really make sense, but whatever. I'll probably start to form a clear idea when the trial happens. Well, I think that's all I would be able to get from Caren, so I should continue on. The next place I went to was where the roots were coming from.

Josef was standing in front of it, hitting it with his cane lightly.

"Having fun there?" I asked him, approaching him.

He hummed in thought. "No, not really… This damn thing was kinda annoying. And with all the animals and such…" He sighed.

"I'm just hoping this clears all up after the trial. But I think it's very unlikely Monokuma can get that done." Historia crossed her arms.

Suddenly.

Bear.

"Hey! Hey hey hey hey!" He called out, raising his arms. "I pride myself on how quickly I work on stuff. I can get a murder scene cleaned up quicker than you could ever think. In fact, I do it during the elevator ride back! Puhuhuhuhuhu!" Doubtful.

"I'm finding that hard to believe." I told him, placing a hand on my hip.

"To clean up so much… I'll believe it when I see it with my eyes." The host told him.

The bear remained silent for a few seconds, seemingly in deep thought. After what felt like ten second, he erupted in laughter. "Then you'll just have to wait and see!" And then, he disappeared.

"Ugh!" Historia sounded annoyed. "I hate his damn guts. Why do any of us have to do this?"

I frowned slightly. How long would all of this go on for. I already couldn't handle the first one, but now a second one was happening. "Well, we should probably go back to investigating…" I told my partner.

"Right…" She didn't sound very eager, but she didn't say no, so.

Josef continued to look at the machine in front of him. "Have fun, girls."

We had one place left that I wanted to check out. And that place was the shed all the way in the back. When I got there, I noticed something. "That's odd…" There was a broken padlock. It being broken wasn't odd. There being one in the first place was. "There wasn't one last time I came here."

Lily had followed us apparently, since she spoke up. "I placed it on there since I didn't want anyone else getting in."

"There's a window they could have broken into." Historia said.

Lily blinked a few times. "Well yeah, I guess there is."

Internally sighing to myself, I turned to look at them both. "But isn't it even odder? Why break the padlock, and not the window. Seems the window would be easier."

"Whoever did this, doesn't make any sense. One glove, breaking a padlock.." Historia brought her hand to her head.

I walked over to the shed, opening it up. "We should still check what's inside, just in case."

The inside looked pretty similar to last time. Alright, that's a lie. It looked like a monkey had stormed into here and trashed the place.

There wasn't much that was missing, everything was there. It just was scattered all over the floor.

Historia walked over to the wall, nabbing something off of it. "I found a single glove, think it might be with the other one?"

I grabbed it. It had the possibility of being the other glove that Caren had mentioned. It was clean, so you could tell this one wasn't used. "But what do we even do with this information…?"

Lily hummed in thought. "I don't know why. Even if you only needed one glove, most people would grab both. Although… It does limit movement a bit. So maybe they needed their other hand to be able to do more."

That is a thought, which I will have to remember. Besides that, I think that's all of note from the shed. "Oh! Lily!" I turned to look at her. "Where are the keys for this place?"

"Huh…" She hunched her head done. "Actually, those went missing. I looked over them a few minutes ago, but they weren't where they used to be."

Intriguing. But if the culprit didn't take the keys, then who did? I shook my head. Once again, that would have to wait for the trial at hand. On my way out, however, I noticed something. The grass near the shed seemed to be squished down. Like something had been placed there. Although, it didn't seem to be a box of any kind… And fur? Maybe an animal rested here last night?

But seriously, that was all for the greenhouse. All that was left to check out was Bella's Ultimate Lab. I let out a sad sigh. Bella…

It was a short walk there, but we eventually made it. Although the mood wasn't that great here. Cameron and Jean were in the area in various places, and they were frowning.

Robin on the other hand, had the same usual expression to him. So he should probably be the first person I talk to. "There you are." I said, approaching him. "I was looking for you."

"You think I did it?" He asked me.

I blinked a few times. While that could be a possibility, that was not what I was thinking about. "No, you were the one who led the group out of the temple this morning, right?"

"Oh, that." He nodded, before glancing away. "Yeah, I heard the announcement, so I gathered everyone. Although, judging by who was missing, it was obvious to draw conclusions on who it was. Bella was the least likely person to leave."

I nodded my head. "Yes, well, I was wondering… How exactly did you manage to get them all out. You aren't a trap expert like Serena or Stephan. And it was a large group."

Robin remained silent for a few seconds. He glanced away. "Well, for one, the traps seemed more obvious now…"

"More… obvious?" I repeated.

"Huh…" Historia gave him an annoyed look. "What do you mean, more obvious. Serena was nice enough to add signs to them?"

This got a small laugh out of him. "No, nothing like that. They just stood out more." This didn't really help me out. I bit my thumb slightly. But what does it mean…?

"But wait! There's more!" Robin said, putting energy into his words for the first time. "Some traps were already set off." Then he was back to his bland self.

"Some traps were already set off?" I repeated. "But then someone would have had to almost get hit by it." And dodging it wasn't an easy thing. I only dodged it because Marcus and Serena had quick reflexes. I stopped my train of thought, frowning slightly. Marcus… You would have been a help in this motive…

"So someone set off the traps." Historia concluded. "So someone who isn't good at passing them."

"One more thing… The only traps that were set off were the ones with strings. The pressure plates were left alone." He told me.

This was some interesting information. I would need to keep note of this.

The next person I walked over to, was Jean, who was holding his head with one hand.

"I'm going to go look around." Historia said, walking off. I think she just didn't want to deal with this.

"H-hey… Jean…" I greeted him, trying to get his attention.

He looked at me with cold eyes. "What do you want…?"

"I'm… I'm just going around questioning people, looking for info…" I told him. Man, this is awkward, why is he so beat down about it. I don't really remember seeing them talk that often. He didn't really seem to care that much when Volvo died. Or even Marcus…

"I don't have any information. I spent all my team reading, so I didn't get to see anything, or hear anything." He paused briefly. "Although, I did hear someone leave on a couple nights. The first night we stayed there, and the second one." He told me.

"Wait, who was it?" I quickly asked.

"Are you deaf, woman? I said I didn't pay much attention." Oh, so he didn't actually get to see who it was. But maybe that person could be our killer?

"Y-you didn't have to be rude…" I mumbled sadly, looking away.

He paused for a second. "Look… I'm sorry. I'm just frustrated…"

I turned my head back towards him. "How come?"

He had a tear going down his face. "I always wanted to be an Ultimate, but if I knew it was going to turn out like this, I would have never had tried to do so."

"Are you… crying…?" I tilted my head slightly. What's… what's with him. This is unlike him. "Is… everything, alright."

He wiped away his tear. "N-nothing…" He put his hands in his pockets. "But I always wanted to be something special, but isn't that why we're here? Because someone has a bone to pick with Ultimates?"

I had a small frown. "Did you care a lot about Bella?"

"H-huh?" This caught him off guard, he glanced off to the side. "Of course not, we've only known each other for a little over a week."

I thought a bit before realizing something. "Wait, you spent a whole day with just her. You do care-"

"Don't you need to investigate?" He asked me, a frown appearing back on his face.

I looked away. That was true, I didn't have time to just get off topic. I had to find whoever killed Bella, and I wasn't going to get answers from asking personal questions like that. "Alright, I'll go look around." I walked away, leaving him to his devices. That's when I ran back into Historia. "Find anything of note?" I asked her.

She shook her head. "This nerd is useless." He pointed back to Cameron.

"U-useless!? Wait! Nerd? Why do you always call me that?" I mean, it was true.

I shook my head. "Did you find anything of use…?" I asked him.

He hummed in thought before turning towards a room. "There was something in this desert room."

Historia had her mouth opened. "W-what? Why didn't you say that sooner!?"

The dungeon master simply shrugged. "You didn't roll high enough."

"What does that even mean!?" She yelled out, following us.

When we got to the desert area, it was obvious what was wrong. "What… happened to the glass?"

The glass separating the enclosure had been broken open. And some sand was blowing out.

Cameron covered his face with his arm. His outfit was blowing in the wind from it. "Yeah, I don't know what happened, or what animals are in here. But it can't be great for what happened."

I covered my own face, not wanting sand in my eyes. "I couldn't tell you either…"

Historia turned around, coughing up some sand. "Well, someone should hurry up and fix it."

"N-no, I need to see something…" I walked closer, before uncovering my eyes. In the small time I got to see, there were no animals in it, unlike last time. Then, I got sand in my eyes. "Ah!" I yelled out, turning away.

"Riley!" Cameron called out, helping me out of the room.

I blinked several times, trying to get the sand out of my eyes. "This is awful…" I mumbled.

Historia shook her head. "Then, don't look at it directly." She deadpanned.

I rolled my eyes, now that they were feeling better. "I just needed to see if there were any animals in there, and there wasn't."

"Strange…" Cameron mumbled, looking at the other rooms. "I wonder if we got any more broken ones here."

I rubbed my head. "It would probably be best to check, just in case…"

One of the biomes I remember clearly was the snow one. But when I entered it, it seemed fine, and there's no way the animals could escape. "Huh…" I hummed in thought.

"And what brings you here?" A voice asked, making me slightly jump. When I looked over, I saw that it was only Enima.

"Oh, what brings you here?" Historia countered. A hand on her shoulder.

The mysterious girl blinked a few times. "Well, my feet." She smiled.

The historian looked at her for a few seconds before sighing. "Can't argue against that."

"Pretty sure you can…" I shook my head. "I just wanted to check this place out."

Enima walked over to the glass, looking down at the animals. "Oh, and what reason would you possibly have for that?"

"Because this is a murder trial?" I deadpanned. Half of me thinks she's just fucking with us.

She turned back to look at me. "Who do you think did it, based on the evidence?"

"Who do I…?" I don't know, I don't even know how she died. "What about you?" That's right, turn the attention away from you.

"Hist-" She started to say before being interrupted.

"Drop it." The girl said, pouting slightly. "You are more likely to kill someone than I am."

I rubbed the back of my head. "That wasn't exactly the nicest thing to say…" I mumbled.

"Well… it's true." Historia huffed.

"I only kid, anyways." Enima looked back at the snow biome, frowning slightly. "She was such a sweet child, why would anyone want to kill?"

We all remained silent for a few seconds, when…

Suddenly.

Real bear.

I jumped back as a polar bear attacked the glass, seemingly seeing us as a source of food. "Let's just leave this place…" I took a few steps back. I didn't like being here.

Although… "There's one more room I want to check out."

Enima waved us off. "Well, have fun, I'm going to go look elsewhere…"

I rolled my eyes before heading towards the jungle biome. And sure enough, a giant root had bursted through the wall, opening it up. "That's what I thought." I nodded to myself

"Is that all?" Historia inquired with her arms crossed. "I don't want to stay next to any more dangerous animals."

"Don't worry…" I mumbled. "Most of the super dangerous ones are behind glass." Or missing entirely. Whatever happened to the jungle animals. Did Monokuma do somethi-

Suddenly.

Bear.

"Puhuhuhuhu! You must be wondering what I did to the animals." He raised his arm slightly.

"H-how did you…" He can't be a mind reader, right? Maybe I'm just that predictable.

He let out another laugh, covering his face. "It's a Monokuma secret!" He raised his paw again. "But no, I didn't do anything to the animals. They did something to themselves… Or someone else did something…" He said with a cold glare.

… "So I should just assume the killer did something to them." I concluded.

"H-hey! Well, there's no way to know that for sure." The bear tried to steer my thinking. Seems I was on the right track… I think.

"Have we investigated everything?" Historia asked bluntly.

"Do you hear another Monokuma announcement?" He deadpanned.

I looked around. "N-no-"
"Then there's your answer! You haven't investigated everything!" He raised his paw again.

I blinked a few times. "Wait, this isn't time based at all! It's as long as we find all the clues!"

"Gotta blast!" He said, leaving quickly.

"Hey!" I wanted to run after him, but Historia stopped me.

"Not worth it…" She mumbled to me

I hummed in thought. "What else could we be missing?"

She simply shrugged. "I'm going to go looking around, when the announcement plays out, we can meet up again." I watched her walk away.

I watched her walk off, scratching my head. "Seriously, what could I have missed…?" Shaking my head, I decided to head back to the forest. Hopefully Stephan found something else there.

When I eventually made it back, Stephan and Serena were still there.

Serena was wearing a glove. Actually! It was the glove that was missing. Guess she must have found it lying around. Besides that, she seemed to be holding a plant. "We found this…"

I blinked a few times, trying to see what it was. It just looked like a weird leaf. Although there seemed to be small spikes on it. "What is it?"

Serena looked down at it, a little unsure with herself. "I'm not exactly sure… But I'm not taking any risks and touching it directly." She said that as I reached over to grab it, but that stopped me in my tracks. "Don't grab it, got it."

"I'll carry it for now. I'll have to ask Lily about it." She told me.

I nodded. "If anyone knew, it would be her." … Or Bella would have known too. "But I'm surprised you don't know about it."

"I don't go hunting in other countries. This is clearly from somewhere else." She warned me. "Although maybe I should head out to another country someday."

If we get out of here. But I wasn't going to say that out loud. "What about you, did you find anything else, Stephan?"

He had his arms crossed, looking off into the distance. It took him a bit to realize he was being talked to. "Oh, huh?" He looked over at me. "Nothing much, really…" He hummed in thought. "Serena is the huntress, after all, she's the one who found more than me."

The huntress nodded at him. "We found some tracks heading further into the forest, but Monokuma wouldn't let us go."

"Wouldn't let you go further?" I inquired. "Interesting…" Maybe a way out? Then, I noticed something. "Serena, where's your bird?"

She glanced up at the sky. "I have him scavenging for any clues."

"Why not… just look yourself. I'm sure a bird won't know what a clue is." I started to say.

"Well, it's more so that there could be one in the trees, like you found with Stephan." She told me.

Well… in that case… "Why not just have Stephan go and find a potential clue?"

"My legs hurt." He answered. Baby…

Suddenly, the sound of a bird could be heard. It came down towards Serena, landing on her shoulder. It seemed to have something in its mouth. "Thank you…" She scratched his neck.

"How did you train the bird so fast?" I asked her. Seriously, she's only had that bird for a few days. How can it be so well trained already?

The huntress blinked, looking at it. "I don't know, maybe it just likes humans." I couldn't tell if she was lying or not. Then, my attention turned to what the bird had in its mouth. "A… key chain?" I tilted my head slightly. "Odd…" On the keychain, there were several different things. There was a symbol of a flower for one, which meant that it probably had to do with Lily's lab. There were two keys, as well as a ring locked into it. I'm not sure what the ring means, but it's probably whoever owned the key years back.

.

Ding Dong! Bing Bong! Ding Dong! Bing Dong!

.

The intercom turned on somewhere in the forest, and the voice of Monokuma could be heard. "It is now time for the trial! You have all been given a sufficient amount of time to investigate. I hope you are all ready for round two!" He cheered before the air fell silent.

"Already time… Huh…" I mumbled under my breath, hugging myself slightly. "I don't like this at all…"

"I'm sure everything will turn out fine." Stephan said in an optimistic voice as he walked on ahead.

No, it won't, since someone else will end up dying at the end of this… I followed closely behind the two.

Soon, we reached the hotel lobby with everyone else.

"Seems everyone is here now…" Jack hummed, turning his body towards the elevator. "Is everyone ready to go, or do you want to wait a little longer?"

"I just need… a little more time to collect my thoughts…" Lily mumbled, holding her hands together.

Caren shook her head. "There's no point in delaying the inevitable…" She turned towards the elevator, pressing the button. "Let's go." She seemed cold at the moment.

"Shouldn't we at least look over the evidence?" Jean crossed his arms.

When the elevator door opened, the babysitter stepped in. "We can do that on the elevator ride there…"

Everyone mumbled to themselves before heading inside the elevator. And then, the door closed. We started heading down for a few seconds before heading over to the courtroom.

The place was rather silent, since no one really wanted to talk.

"Hey hey hey…" Enima shook her head. "This silence won't do us any good. We can at least try and talk some more."

Cameron coughed a few times. "Does… does anyone have any ideas on who they think it is?"

More silence. "No…" I told him. "We probably won't be able to figure it out way into the trial."

"R-right, sorry for asking." He started to shake a dice in his hand, probably to calm his nerves or something.

"May I ask a question?" Daniella said with a small smile on her face. Her mood was always hard to read.

"Sure, what's the question?" The Dungeon Master seemed rather excited.

Ignoring him entirely, the secretary turned her attention to Serena. "Why do you still have that bird."

The huntress was scratching the bird's neck when she looked over at Daniella. "Is there a problem with that? He's mine."

She simply hummed. "I'm still just worried about being near any animals for the time being."

"If he gets violent, I'll shoot him down, don't worry." She glared at her.

Daniella did a curtsy with her eyes closed. "Sorry for the trouble."

Then, the elevator arrived at its destination.

The door opened up and we started to walk out. Something to note that was different was that where Marcus was during the trial, now stood a picture with a skull over his face. I frowned upon seeing it. I wished I would stop being reminded of it.

After a few seconds, we all reached the podiums that were ours.

There was a lot of doubt in this room, since someone had decided to kill again…

.

Several pictures appeared.

One of Jean leaning back to the side, reading a book.

One of Lily holding a bouquet of flowers, picking one of the petals off.

One of Marcus, tipping his hat down, with a small smirk on his face.

One of Serena, loading her bow with an arrow.

One of Stephan with a smile, waving.

Last night, an angel died.

One of Historia, with her arms crossed, unhappy.

One of Bella, holding her hands together, with a small frown.

One of Enima grinning to herself, her eyes, conveying an unknown emotion.

One of Josef holding his cane against his forehead.

One of Cameron, throwing his dice at the camera.

Today, a demon lies amongst us.

One of Robin, cloaking himself in his robe.

One of Caren, running her hands through her hair.

One of Jack, adjusting his glasses, looking off to the side.

One of Riley, looking determined with a little fear in her eyes.

One of Daniella smirking with her eyes closed.

Today, in this trial, we will bring justice to Bella!

.

.

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Class Trial!

Commence!

.

.

.

"Where do we even begin with this one?" Cameron rubbed the back of his neck. "We practically know nothing since Monokuma didn't even give us a cause of death."

The bear simply shrugged at that. "Figure it out yourselves!"

"How about the horrible state the body was found in." Caren suggested. "I think that would be the best way to start."

"No objections from me. Her body was in a rather rough shape." Serena agreed, giving her a glance.

Stephan nodded, pulling out the Monokuma file. "Well, since he's so kind to give us a few images of her body… Let me just go over what we know. It says she suffered a broken right arm, from what? We'll need to figure out. As well as a crack in her skull."

"Talk about brutal." Robin said, shaking his head.

The parkourist looked around. "Anything that I missed?"

"Well…" I trailed off. "The file didn't mention it, but her left hand was red, and swelled up slightly. Also it was really warm, but that's pretty much all that was to note."

"Pretty warm, and swollen?" Lily repeated before shaking her head. "Maybe something stabbed into her hand or something… I'm not that great at these murder things."

I don't think any of us are… I shook my head. "I don't know what that means, but might this be related to how she could have died."

"But until we know what actually caused it, we can't be sure." Daniella shook her head. "It could be completely unrelated. If anything, maybe she got it a day before she died. We can't truly know at this stage."

Josef shook his head. "While that is a possibility, I think we would have noticed that."

Jean snapped his fingers. "Exactly, something like that had to have been added recently. But we still don't know what could have caused it."

"Well, with all the animals running around." Historia had a hand on her hip. "Probably one of them, if I needed to guess."

"Yeah, but the jungle doesn't have many animals that could do that, let alone any that we encountered." Serena countered.

The historian huffed, realizing she was out of her league when it came to talking about animals. "Very well, does anyone else have anything to add?"

"Well, we shouldn't even worry about that yet…" Josef shook his head. "There's still other manners to attend to. The broken arm, and the cracked skull."

"Well, clearly a demon hit her on the head!" Lily shouted out. "Poor girl didn't even stand a chance." She seems… ready to cry. I shook my head slightly.

"Well, if she did get hit in the head, you would think we'd find something like that, but we didn't find much."

"And while we found weapons, they would have given her a stabbing wound, which she clearly didn't have." Daniella told the florist. "So don't rush to conclusions."

"Hmph! I'm not done here!" She called out. "She could have easily had her head bashed against a tree. That could have caused an injury like that, right?"

Stephan hummed in thought. "While true, it would have left a very different injury, I think, since she would have been repeatedly bashed against the tree."

"Why do you want Bella's head to have been bashed against a tree?" Enima asked, sending her a look.

"Eep!" Lily quickly shook her head. "Nonononono… I don't want that…"

This was going to be a hard trial, I could already tell from just how this was going already. "Let's get back on track, shall we."

"Agreed." Caren nodded. "Wasting time on stuff that probably didn't happen won't get us anywhere." Wow, she sure was being cold today.

Jack adjusted his glasses. "Precisely. Now, I'm not sure what everyone else found, but I think what I found was irrelevant."

"Oh, how so? What did you find?" Jean tilted his body slightly, one hand in his pocket.

The critic remained silent for a few seconds. "Paint." Was the answer he finally gave.

"Paint?" The librarian deadpanned. "The mystery is solved, she drank the pain and died from it!"

This got a small laugh from Jack. "Alright, go ahead, mock me. I may not have found anything useful, but what did you find?"

"Moving on." Jean said, glancing to the side.

Way to back off quickly.

"May I, gentleman?" Daniella did a small curtsy, wanting to talk.

"Go right ahead." Jack offered her.

She kept her eyes closed with a smile ."Well, shouldn't we factor in what the time of her death was? It was 10:43 at night, after all. Isn't that odd?"

"Odd how?" I asked her.

She opened her eyes just to roll them. "It would be quite difficult to walk out of the temple, wouldn't you say?"

"Right!" I realized what she meant. "The traps, is that what you are talking about?"

"Then wouldn't it be natural to assume someone who could get through the traps is the killer." Caren suggested, eyeing some people.

"Wait, I know this looks bad." Stephan raised his arms up. "But I swear it wasn't me."

Serena looked ready to send her bird to attack the babysitter.

"Stand down, Serena." I warned her, looking at Caren. "We can't make that assumption just yet."

"Besides, Robin can also apparently see the traps." Josef pointed out. "He's the one who guided us out this morning."

My attention shifted to the amnesiac. "Anything to say about that?"

He remained silent for a few seconds before looking at me. "Hmm, true, I did guide everyone through it. But for some reason, they just felt easier to notice. Maybe because someone had died, and I felt I needed to see what happened." He crossed his arms, a small frown appearing on his face for a fraction of a second.

I wasn't completely convinced, but it also wasn't grounds enough to assume he did it. "Well, since that's only you who can sa-"

"Actually." Daniella leaned forward slightly. "I can understand what he's talking about. I could faintly see the traps when I could not before."

"Maybe your eyes finally adjusted to the darkness after staying there for so long. It would make sense, right?" Josef suggested.

"Even if that was the case…" Jack crossed his arms. "It would be very difficult to rely on that for navigation…" A small smirk appeared on his face. "And there's the chance their eyes would go back to normal after stepping outside."

"Not necessarily…" Stephan hummed. "It was at night, so it was still dark. If someone's eyes did adjust to the darkness, it's possible it was able to stay that way."

"Either way…" Jean continued for his friend. "The odds were still risky. Because if they went out, they had to make their way back, right?"

Josef shook his head. "This is still not really going anywhere. Maybe we can come to this point later."

"Agreed." Lily nodded. "I don't want to worry about how the killer got there, I want to worry about how Bella died!"

"One step at a time, Lily…" Caren sighed.

"Oh, speaking of you…" Serena took out the plant from earlier, making sure to hold it with her glove. "Do you recognize this?"

She let out a small scream. "Don't just hold it! Even with gloves!"

The huntress dropped it to the ground. "W-what's wrong with it…?"

The florist puffed her cheeks. "It's a poisonous plant! Even touching it could get you badly hurt, and even kill you." She took a deep breath. "Alright, who's ready for some explaining time?"

Enima groaned loudly as she leaned her head on her podium. "Just make it quick."

Lily took a deep breath. "This thing is called gympie gympie-"

"The what?" Jean couldn't help but laugh a bit. "Who came up with that name?" Then he quickly stopped laughing. Probably realizing this was a trial after all, so he shouldn't do anything like that.

The florist shook her head. "This isn't a plant to laugh about. Well, more so a tree, a stinging one that is…" She took a deep breath. "Just one sting from these is enough to make your body get an allergic reaction… And… even sometimes…" She had a small tear. "It may cause anaphylactic shock… Which can be fatal…"

"Translation…?" I mumbled.

"Basically…" Jack pushed his glasses up. "Bella would have faced many symptoms, including perhaps vomiting, abrupt fall in blood pressure, maybe she had difficulty breathing. All reactions of severe allergies that most people could have. It's not something to mess with lightly…"

Lily looked over at Serena. "Where did you find this?" She seemed very serious now.

"H-huh… in the forest of my lab, it was a little bit away from the body…" She trailed off. "I guess that's how she died. But it shouldn't have been there in the first place."

"Of course not, this plant is native to Australia." The florist said.

Historia had her arms crossed, looking away. "I doubt we are in Australia too, so where did it come from?"

Lily poked her fingers together. "My lab…"

"I told you to get rid of these things!" The historian yelled out loudly at her. "And what would you say if this is what killed her, huh!?"

She quickly covered her ears. "This isn't my fault!"

"Let's remain calm…" I warned Historia. "So, if this is what got her killed, then at least we have a cause of death…" Which would make one thing make sense. "Her left hand seemed to have swollen up, she might have touched it with her hand and got killed."

"But…" Jean pointed to the Monokuma file. "That still doesn't explain the broken arm, and the fractured skull. Sure, she could have just keeled over dead, but there's just so much uncertainty to that. Besides, if she grabbed the plant on her own, doesn't that make herself the…" He paused himself, looking down and frowning. "Doesn't that make herself the killer?"

Wait, no, that seems highly unlikely. "You're forgetting she's the Ultimate Ecologist. You think she'd just grab a plant like that willingly. She, along with Lily, are probably the only two people who would have known what it does."

"The only two people who would have known what it does?" Josef repeated, his gaze shifting over to Lily. "So someone like her would have known how to use it."

"W-wait just a moment!" She looked spooked, quickly glancing around. "You don't think I killed the child!"

I think she was actually older than you. "No, we aren't accusing you…" Although it does make sense that only those two would know. Even Serena didn't know… Although… I sent a glance towards her. "Serena, how did you know to wear the gloves to grab it?"

"I don't know, just my huntress instincts…" She moved hair out of her way. "Like I said, I don't hunt outside of this country, but the plant didn't seem familiar to me, so I took precautions."

Josef hummed in thought, pressing his cane against his forehead. "I find that rather hard to believe… You are the Ultimate Huntress, so you should be able to hunt anything, which would require you to go to different countries. Besides, in your field, there's no way you haven't heard of that plant."

The huntress gritted her teeth. "I'm telling the truth."

Stephan lifted his hands up in defense. "Look, maybe it's her, maybe it isn't. All I'm saying is that it's too early to make any concrete decisions…"

"I agree…" Jack nodded, looking at the ground. "It could be she truly didn't know. Who's to blame her from not knowing about a plant. She hunts animals, after all."

Josef scoffed, frowning. "If you say so. But where do we take the conversation now?"

That was a good question. There were so many ways to take this. "Well, I guess we could talk about some other stuff, like the tool shed!" I pointed out.

"Who would want to talk about a boring tool shed?" Enima deadpanned.

"Hey, tool sheds can be interesting." Said Cameron, because of course he would say that.

The mysterious girl looked over at him. "Sure they are."

Historia shook her head. "No, the toolshed would be a good idea to talk about since we found some interesting things there." She lifted up a finger. "For one, a glove was missing, which Serena is currently wearing."

"What's stopping her from being the one that wore it to begin with?" Josef asked with a hum.

"We found it in the forest." Serena deadpanned at him. "I wouldn't have been stupid enough to leave it there, anyways. I would have gotten rid of it."

The host thought for a few seconds before nodding. "Very well, that is a valid point. Continue on."
The historian seemed slightly annoyed. "Not just that, but the lock that Lily placed on it was busted open. But there was no need to bust it open when they could have just shattered the window."

"Right!" Lily nodded. "That would have been faster in the long run. Sure, glass shards could have gone everywhere, and they could have cut themselves, but…" She trailed off, tilting her head to the side a bit. "It was still the safer option."

So, something had to be preventing them from doing it? Well, what could the glass have done to stop them…?

"The noise!" I realized, lifting a finger up. "It had to be noise that stopped them!"

"How would the noise stop-?" Jack started to ask.

Serena shook her head. "Let her finish her train of thought."

At least someone's there to back me up. "No, if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Remember, the forest was filled with animals! What is the likelihood the killer didn't want to be heard by one of them. That would mean the killer mustn't have felt confident in taking out any animal."

"So, it couldn't have been Serena…" Josef concluded. "She wouldn't have cared at all, and fought any animal that came her way." He twirled his cane. "But as for it could be…" He pressed the cane on the ground. "I don't think any of us would be confident enough to take on a wild animal…"

I shook my head. "While it doesn't really number things down, it would explain why the killer did what they did."

"Is there even any proof there was one nearby? Seems like a lot of precaution for something that could not have been there in the first place." Jean pointed out with a grin.

"As a matter of fact." I returned the grin. "There seemed to be indication that the animal was sleeping next to the shed. There was also some fur there. So we know an animal was for sure there."

Lily nodded. "Yeah, I noticed that too."

"So, there was for sure an animal." Jack crossed his arms. "Now, why couldn't they fnd a key, you would think they could happen across that rather easily. You didn't hide the keys, now did you, Lily?" He sent her a look.

The florist shook her head, looking at the ground. "Well… no, I kept the keys in the greenhouse, but when I went to look for them, they were gone."

"So someone did take the keys!" Historia yelled out. "So why didn't they use the-"

Cameron shook his head. "Not so fast there, young cleric!"

"Young what now?" She deadpanned.

The dungeon master took a step back. "If we are dealing with animals, couldn't one of them have stolen the keys?"

Josef pressed his cane against his forehead. "An animal… stole the keys…?"

Serena nodded at it. "Maybe a monkey of some kind. This was a jungle, after all."

That's when I remembered something. "The inside of the shed was rather trashed, like a small tornado went through… Or…" I trailed off.

"A monkey." The huntress realized where I was going. "Depending on how smart it is, it could likely use the keys to unlock the lock, and close it when it's done."

"What would a monkey even want from a tool shed?" Daniella tilted her head with a smile. "I don't assume there was anything of value in a monkey's eyes. And I doubt they took a glove from the shed, unless some other things are missing there."

Lily shook her head. "Not that I can think of, everything was still there except that glove."

Cameron clenched his fist, raising it up. "So then the monkey didn't really do anything but stop the killer briefly, huh?" He turned around, looking outside the window. "What a troublesome monkey. I wonder if I should add something like that-"

"Moving on." Jean shook his head, probably not wanting to deal with dungeons and dragons right now. "So we have the reason why the killer couldn't get in anywhere unless he broke the lock."

"But what exactly does that tell us? That there's some rampant monkey on the loose?" Enima pointed out. "I think most of that was just a waste of time, honestly."

"How did they break the lock in the first place?" Caren asked, holding her arm. "I feel like using something to bash it open would also alert the animal of their presence."

"Oh, well I actually have a saw for the pesky vines that can get overgrown… Which would have been useful for this motive…" Lily hummed, before shaking her head. "But it should be sharp enough to break through a thin layer of metal, although it would take a bit."

"So the killer used some sort of saw?" Enima asked, looking around. "Did anyone actually find something like that?"

I shook my head. "No… No I didn't."

"Hey! Were you not just listening!" The florist called out. "There's one in my greenhouse, and it was still there!"

"Alright, so there was one there. No more questions needed." Jean shook his head. "Now, what point do we talk about now? We know how she died, and how the killer carried the plant, which I assume is the glove."

"Back on the subject of the plant." Daniella hummed with a confidant smirk on her face. "We still don't know who could have known about it except Lily, the victim herself, and Serena, using precaution."

"We already cleared up Sere-" Josef started to say.

The secretary shook her head. "We only know that the killer wished to not engage the animals. Not that they couldn't."

"I wouldn't let an animal stop me from killing someone." Serena said in a rather serious voice. I hope she wasn't planning on killing anyone soon.

This got a small laugh out of Daniella. "Oh please, you might think like that. But are you able to dispose of the body if you did kill it?"

"Dispose of the body…?" She repeated. "Why would I…?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh my, to think you are this blind from what it would turn out if you actually killed the animal. There would probably be an arrow hole in it's head."

Josef snapped his fingers. "That is entirely true. If Serena is the killer, she would have realized that and avoided doing that at all costs."

"Or hid the body after the-" Daniella started to say before being cut off.

Stephan shook his head. "Unlikely that the animal was killed, unless, there was a spec of blood around the area it was sleeping in."

"There was not." I confirmed what he was saying.

"Then there you have it." The parkourist crossed his arms. "It's unlikely that someone killed it. Besides, if you are asking where it went, I'm not sure if you realized, but there were no more jungle animals this morning. They all disappeared somewhere."

"Disappeared?" Cameron asked, blinking a few times. "How do so many animals just disappear?"

"I…" He started to say, shaking his head. "I don't know. It's like they were being called by something. There were tracks leading deeper into the forest. But Monokuma wouldn't let us through. Sounds like he was hiding evidence from us."

"Puhuhuhu!" The bear laughed at this accusation. "I didn't hide anything from this trial."

"Why an emphasis on this trial?" Robin asked before realizing something. "So you are hiding something, it's just irrelevant to us right now. Don't worry panda. We'll figure out what it is in no time."

Being called a panda seemed to tick off Monokuma slightly. "I am not a panda!"

"So that animal must have been called out by whatever was there too. Probably because a murder had happened." Stephan continued on. "Right, Monokuma." He looked over at the panda. Yeah, I should start calling him that too!

He shook his head. "Actually, that had nothing to do with me! Puhuhuhuhuhu!"

"What?" The parkourist blinked.

Caren shook her head. "If this has nothing to do with this trial, let's drop it for now. We still need to figure out who killed Bella."

"I'm still interested in how the killer managed to get out in the first place." Cameron circled back to that. "There had to be some way, right?"

"Assuming that the killer wasn't someone who could make it through the traps, then yeah." Josef nodded.

I thought for a bit, but nothing was really coming to mind at the moment. "It might just be the eyes adjusting to the dark, like was previously mentioned."

"What if… the killer did something that made the traps stand out?" Robin suggested.

I blinked a few times. "Did something that made the traps stand out? Like what?" Nothing came to mind for that either. Did somebody really do something like that?

Then, I remembered something. "Robin." My attention turned to him. "You said something interested earlier."

He turned to look at me. "Oh? I did?"

I nodded. "You said some of the traps were already activated. Primarily… the ones that used string to activate."

"How did I not notice that…?" Stephan mumbled to himself. "But not that you brought it up. It might be true."

The tactician rubbed the back of his head. "Although… I'm not exactly sure what that means."

It means… "Someone tripped the traps at one point. For what purpose, I don't know…" What reason would someone even have to do that?

"To get out." Jean said, thinking a bit. "If they didn't know where exactly the traps were, doing that would be an easy way to do so as they made their way out."

"But they had to come back, right?" Lily asked, tilting her head slightly.

"By then, someone could have easily memorized where they all were." Robin pointed out. "It's what I did after a trip there."

Enima snorted at that. "The amnesiac using his memory to remember where traps are? Doesn't that seem too unreliable."

The tactician simply smirked that. "More than likely, yes. But it still worked for me. And you people trusted me enough to guide you through, correct?"

This got the mysterious girl to be quiet.

"Alright, how about a marking of some sort?" Caren suggested. "Having markings been drawn would make it much easier, right?"

Markings… then, something came to me. "The paint…?" I mumbled.

"What was that?" Jean asked, turning to look at me. He was right beside me, so of course he heard me talking.

"Huh-uh…" I was trying to think of something, but I figured I might as well just come out with the paint idea. "What about the paint that Jack found? Maybe that could have been used to paint some markings?"

"Brilliant!" Cameron shouted out. "What a marvel. Whoever did this really thought it through." This received a glare from Caren, and Liy. "Right…" He sighed, rubbing the back of his head.

Serena shook her head. "But to get the paint, they would need to go outside in the first place, so it was pointless to do so…"

"And it would have just eaten up a bunch of time. If Bella died at 10:43pm, why would they waste so much time on that?" Jean pointed out, shaking his head.

Yeah, he's right. There would be no reason…

"But…" Serena cut into the conversation. "Jack, you said the paint was used, right?"

The critic raised his glasses up, a confident smirk plastered on his face. "Very much so, a bucket and a half was used."

The huntress looked around. "If any of you can't admit to using the paint, then it's safe to say that it's involved in this case."

Jean rubbed the back of his head. "But still, that does-" He was cut off.

"Then they didn't pain last night before the murder…" Cameron said in a more serious tone. He clenched his fist. "Maybe… maybe this was done a previous day?"

A previous day? "What do you mean?"

The dungeon master looked at the ground. "What if someone did something two nights ago? In preparation for the murder?"

Preparation for the murder. "Are you saying someone planned this a couple days ago!?"

Stephan covered his mouth slightly, pondering this thought. "That might be the case. So we have to look at what could have happened sooner than that… Or maybe that's still irrelevant, but it means it wasn't a spur of the moment type of deal. Someone planned this all out to every last detail."

"Does that include Bella being the target?" Lily mumbled. "Was that planned out too a few days ago?"

The room fell silent for a few seconds…

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.

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Class Trial!

Intermission!

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"Who would want Bella dead?!" Caren seemed rather angry.

"You weren't under the impression that it was a situation like Volvo, right?" Jack raised his head slightly, looking down at her.

"I… Well…" She didn't know what to say. "Maybe… That's what I thought. But now this asshole can't be forgiven for what they've done!"

"Calm down there, princess…" Enima glanced away, resisting a smirk.

"Don't call me that…" She seemed rather angry at her.

"Isn't the paint at Serena's lab camo paint? Or well, it could not be. I'm assuming because what other paint would she have?" Josef asked.

The huntress nodded. "Yes, it is camo paint."

"Then…" He thought for a bit. "Wouldn't it be hard to see in general if use-"

He was cut off by Serena. "Camo paint only really gets it's full use in a forest, or at least the environment that they are made for. For example, camo for one forest could simply not work in another, different type of forest. Furthermore, since the temple is a man made building with orange like walls, the camo would be obvious against the walls. So no, it wouldn't be hard to notice."

"And yet you didn't notice it?" Enima pointed out.

She was going to say something after thinking for a bit, but Stephan spoke instead. "Nor did you."

She blinked a few times, before putting a hand on her hip. "You guys always gang up on me."

"So we know how the killer got in and out of the temple." Jean pointed out. "And I think they did this the previous day so they could be unobstructed by the traps on the actual day of the murder."

"I'm wondering how Bella got out. Did she follow them?" Lily asked.

"No offence…" Enima shook her head. "But Bella was a little too trusting. It's likely the killer convinced her somehow to go with them."

"I refuse to believe that!" Caren yelled out.

Jean shrugged. "Believe it or not, it's irrelevant for now. We need to go back to Bella's state when we found her. A broken arm, and fractured head. That info is still very important."

Right. We still haven't even touched upon that information… What other clues do we even have for that?

Cameron hummed in thought, stroking his chin. "Honestly, it kinda looked like she simply fell."

"Fell?" Caren asked, looking annoyed. "What reason would she even have to climb trees?"

"Once again, could have been convinced to do so." Enima suggested.

I glanced off to the side. Did I even find anything that could indicate that she climbed up the tree?

Then it hit me! When Stephan brought me up there… "There was blood up there!" I blurted out, interrupting any argument that I wasn't paying attention to.

"How, an avid tree climber?" Jack looked over at me.

"Huh… not exactly…" People jump to conclusions way too easily. "No, Stephan brought me up there and we saw some sort of spot of blood on the tree. Sure, it could be just some animals, but it could also be Bella's."

The parkourist nodded. "Yes, there was some. It's possible that she got attacked up on the tree and…"

"Splat." Enima added for sound effects, which was really unwarranted.

"Enima." Daniella said softly. "Please remain professional in a courtroom environment." Yeah sure, that was the problem here.

"It would explain the broken arm…" Jean mumbled to himself, snapping his fingers. "She probably landed on her arm, which broke the fall, but also hit her head a few seconds later."

"Might explain why we found her body like that." Stephan asked, crossing his arms.

"She… fell to her death…?" Lily mumbled, falling down to her knees. She looked ready to cry. "Who would do such a thing!?"

Jack scoffed. "Someone who clearly valued their own life over someone else's." He surveyed the room, but shook his head when he didn't find anything.

What was he doing? Looking for some form of guilt?

"She might have not even been pushed off." Robin shook his head. "If we consider what she would have touched before."

Images of Bella touching the plant and growing weaker as she slipped off on her own came to mind. "You mean, she slipped because of the plant? She got poisoned and…"

"This is bullshit." Caren called out. But it seemed more out of sorrow than rage. She was trying to act strong, but she was also really hurting inside, huh? She turned to Monokuma. "You put the plant in Lily's lab knowing something like this would even happen."

The bear remained silent, that was a first. "Monokuma?"

Still, nothing.

"Just forget him for now." Daniella hummed. "We have to continue along with this trial, after all." She looked around the room. "Does anyone have anything else to add? Any contribution would be great."

Historia sighed. "There's still a lot of stuff we found that didn't get used, maybe that could be useful?"

I can't think much else of what was used. "The only thing I can think of is the desert being opened." And I guess the keys, but we already solved that mystery. The monkey had them.

The monkey had them… the monkey had them... I blinked a few times. "Hey, Serena…" I looked over at her.

She shifted her attention towards me. "Yes, how may I help you?"

"How exactly did your bird fight the monkey for those keys?" I asked her.

"How did my…" She looked down, pondering the question. "I don't know how it managed to get keys from it. But it was in the forest."

"So the monkey wandered off into the forest, and dropped the keys." I concluded.

Serena blinked a few times. "Wait, yes the monkey!" She had a lot of energy in her. "I actually saw it when I was walking into the forest at the start."

"And you didn't think to bring this up… Why?" Enima had her hand on her hip.

"I deal with animals all the time, seeing one isn't something I think as a super important clue."

"So, huh…" I lifted up a finger. "How was the monkey?"

"Dead." She responded coldly.

I should have seen that coming.

"Then how did it die?" Josef asked. "Might have been a wild animal, right?"

Serena had her arms crossed. "Well, I feel even stupider now, but it's around where I found the plant."

The plant… "You mean the poisonous one!?"

She nodded. "Exactly, it was a few feet away from the monkey, so it was likely dropped by it because it got too much to hold."

"What if…" Cameron thought for a bit. "The killer didn't grab the plant, and the monkey did?"

"Then, what praytell, did the killer use?" Josef asked rather rudely. His head turned to look at Lily. "Are there any other deadly plants you keep?"

She quickly shook her head. "Not as deadly as that one, no…"

"Then what could have killed her?" Jean asked. "Look, she had to have been stung by something right, unless she just jabbed her hand on the tree, and that's why it's swollen."

I looked at the ground. What else could have been used… I don't know what other venomous animals there are in the jungle but maybe… An idea came to me… It wasn't from the jungle… That's right! There was one more biome that was open. The desert biome. I slammed my hands against the podium. "There's one more thing that could have poisoned her!"

"Oh, I'm all ears." Enima smirked.

"A scorpion!" I called out, looking at everyone.

"Don't scorpions only appear in like, one or two jungles?" Jean asked, rubbing the back of his head. "Highly unlikely there was one in that biome thing."

A small smirk appeared on my face. "You are probably right… But that's not the only biome we are dealing with here."

"Ah-Ha!" Cameron caught on to what I was talking about. "It's clash of the biomes! The desert part of Bella's Ultimate Lab had shattered glass, so anything could have come out. Including… a scorpion!"

"So now we have a scorpion in play… Interesting. But how would the killer have used it?" Daniella inquired.

I thought some more before realizing something else. "How thick are those gloves?"

Serena took one of them out, feeling around them. "Actually really thick, if you ask me."

"They're meant for preventing most injuries from working with dangerous plants." Lily pointed out. "They hinder some hand movement, but it's better to have them."

Serena put it back on. "Then why tell me not to hold the plant while wearing them?"

"Because you are inexperienced!" She called out, before looking over at me. "Are you saying she was stung by a scorpion…?"

I nodded my head. "It's very likely that was the case."

"But then she would have been stung by one while climbing a tree. That seems very unlikely…" Caren shook her head.

Jean nodded. "The killer would have needed to climb a tree while having a scorpion on them."

"Climbing a tree is already not an easy feat…" Stephan hummed.

Ah, so this is how everything is starting to play out. "Yeah, but what if they had a tool to help them out. Let's say… a knife."

"Yes." Daniella smiled. "You mean the one we found back in Serena's lab? The one that had sawdust on it? Seems my interest for knives finally kicked in."

"Oh? You like knives? Well why didn't you say so?" Cameron seemed rather happy about this.

Ignoring him, Daniella pulled out said knife. "I even brought it with me."

"Did you just steal-" Serena started to ask.

"Moving on." The secretary said without remorse. "Using this knife could have made climbing slightly easier, although still difficult."

"Can I have my kn-" The huntress started to say.

Daniella put the knife away. "So the knife in one hand, and maybe the scorpion curled up in the other .Because the gloves were thick, I think it wouldn't have been able to sting him, and also not be able to go anywhere."

"But there's too many variables for that to work. The odds of that happening...-" Jean started to say.

"Pfft, the odds." Cameron shook his head. "If we worry too much about the odds of something happening, we start to ignore the improbable. Just because it's unlikely, doesn't mean it can't happen."

The librarian looked at the ground. "I guess."

"But!" Josef shook his head. "How would he get Bella up there?"

Enima leaned her head back slightly, a small smile formed on her face. "Well, she's the Ultimate Ecologist right? Someone really absorbed into her passion. What's stopping her from having climbed trees before?"

Lily's eyes lit up slightly. "Oh, now that you mention it! She did say stuff about going up trees. But still, these were some rather large trees…" She rested her head on her hand.

"The killer could have helped her out." Historia suggested. "If they were trying to get her high up on the tree."

I shook my head in amusement. "But that wouldn't work that much. One hand was holding a knife lodged in a tree, the other hand was…" That wiped the smile right off my face. "Oh…" I said sadly. "The killer banked on her needing help…"

"W-what?" Lily took a step back. "What do you mean?"

I looked at the ground. "Well, let's say the killer offered her a hand. What hand would he use. The one holding the knife… or his other hand."

"Clearly his other hand." Jean rolled his eyes.

"Right. The one… that might have been holding the scorpion. It was dark out, and in a forest. The scorpion I saw would have easily been able to go unseen by Bella, and when she reached over." The image of the scorpion stinging her came to mind. Then, she walked around on the tree branch before her hand hit the side of it, and finally, falling down. I quickly shook my head. "The killer must have figured she would take the help. She wasn't too cautious around people. Sure, she was shy, but still really kind…" I sighed.

"The monster…" Caren mumbled to herself. "Seriously. Who would do this? What motive would they have? This isn't like last time when someone needed to act. We could have just waited till the animals cleared out!"

"Then…" Stephan crossed his arms. "Someone didn't care about the motive, and was simply trying to escape for their own good."

"Their own good?" Lily blurted out. "I'm sorry, but that's a pretty shitty excuse!"

I glanced over at the two girls. Honestly, I think whatever execution Monokuma has will pale in comparison to what these two girls would do to them.

"Well now, we truly know how she died…" Jean brought up. "Now what? We are right back where we started."

"You say she was very trusting, Riley." Enima glanced over at me. "But is that really the truth? Maybe it is, but at night? She should have seen it coming, honestly. I don't think just anyone could wake her up and have her follow them." Her attention was focused on three people. "So, Lily, Caren, and Jean. Must be one of you three!" She noted.

"W-what? Why me?" The librarian was taken aback. "We barely interacted."

This got a laugh out of her. "Oh, you must think I'm stupid." Then her face grew serious. "I'm talking about what happened with the last motive. When you two were trapped together. She must have grown fond of you." She paused for a few seconds, a mischievous grin appearing on her face. "And also I heard you almost cr-"

"Alright, yeah, fine! She really trusts me. But do you honestly think I would hurt her?" Jean was getting frustrated. "Leave me the fuck out of this, bitch."

She backed off slightly from that conversation. "I can see I hit a sore spot."

"The same applies to us." Caren put a hand on her chest. "We would never harm her. She reminds me of some kids I used to watch, so of course I would protect her."

"And she's just too cute to hurt!" Lily yelled out. "You must be out of your mind if you think I'd hurt her." She put her hands on her hips.

"Maybe we are thinking of this backwards, perhaps…?" Jack tilted his head upwards, looking down on Enima. "What if she wasn't even awake when she left the temple. We all slept nearby, and she's kinda a heavy sleeper."

Jean nodded his head. "Yeah, it took a lot to wake her up when we were trapped."

"So what's stopping them from just picking her up and carrying her out of the temple over to the forest?" The critic asked everyone. He adjusted his glasses with a smirk. "Seems like a much simpler solution than you are making this out to be."

"But then what about the traps?" Robin asked, bringing a finger to his chin. "Much harder to avoid those if you ask me."

"That's what the paint was for. It wasn't so they could get in and out with ease on the day of the murder. It's so they could carry someone else through it with ease." I realized. Stuff was starting to make sense. "Think of it this way, they managed to get through once with no problem. So they could probably do it again. But having someone with you means you are more limited."

Cameron scratched his cheek. "Then that means they must have been doing something to set traps off so as to not hit them."

I nodded. "Of course. They must have had something activating the traps while they stood back…"

"Like an arrow from Serena, they could have taken that." Josef suggested looking over at her.

"Or your cane." Enima smirked to herself.

"Please, like I would let my cane go with ease. If someone took it, I would have noticed when I woke up." He pressed it against his forehead. "No way they could have placed it in exactly the same position."

The mysterious girl rolled her eyes in amusement. "Alright then, Serena, what about you? Someone could have taken an arrow from you to activate the traps."

She glanced off. "While that is a possibility, I don't think that would have happened either. I am no heavy sleeper. I can't be when I camp out in the woods. So at the sign of anything getting too close to me, I would have woken up."

"Well.. then that doesn't really get us anywhere. At best, somebody could have had their hand in front of them and tried to see where they were, but that would put them too close to the actual traps."

"Hey, what's stopping Josef from using his own cane?" Jean suggested, a small smirk appeared on his face.

If I could see his eyes, I probably would have seen them roll. "Oh, you think I did this, now? Like I would risk some beauty sleep in an attempt to escape this damn place. As long as no one killed, we wouldn't have to go through this damn hell again. And yet, here we are." He looked around the room. "So why don't one of you just confess right now?"

Jack crossed his hands. "Like the murderer would just confess because you asked. Although..." Then he chuckled slightly. "You being the killer doesn't sound like a bad avenue…"

I thought for a moment. Would Josef be able to be the killer? No… I don't think he would. Not after almost dying last time. He's on the track of being a better person! I raised my fist slightly. Hopefully no one saw that. So he should be in the process of changing right now… "Although… what else could have been used to get through the temple. No one else had a really long stick like thing to set off traps in advance…"

"And we could have just said someone took Josef's cane, if he didn't say he would have remembered the position." Jean glared at him.

The host held his cane tightly. "Well, you see, someone here that was smart could have figured that out and placed it in the same position…" His head turned towards someone. "Like Robin, perchance. A master tactician like him could pull off a murder like this with ease. It would explain even further why he was easily able to guide the group through. What do you have to say to defend yourself!" He lifted up his cane to point towards Robin.

The tactician just stared at it, a small smile on his face. Clearly, he was very unbothered by all of this. "Hey, if that was the case, I wouldn't have pointed out the set off traps, or even told them it was easier to navigate. They already know I can do it on my own." I feel like you could tell him his family died, and he would keep almost the same facial expression.

"Then…" Josef held his cane tightly, before loosening his grip on it. "Then I don't know what to tell you… Someone else must have something." His head looked over at Jean. "He brought a book."

"Oh man." Jean pulled out his book. "Yes, my book! Why didn't I think of that?" His tone was riddled in sarcasm. "Hey, fuck off, won't you? No one could have used the damn book for setting off traps."

Daniella looked over at him. "I think it's pretty obvious it's you now." She giggled at a low voice.

Josef shook his head. "You can keep saying what you want. But I didn't do anything!"

Did he really do anything or not…? I can't quite tell. "Well, we need to find the last piece of evidence before we make any conclusive evidence."

The host pointed his staff at me. "Exactly! If you vote for me, you'll all be damning yourselves…"

"Or just you, honestly." Enima said with a smug grin. "Since you are the killer. Most of us have at least some compassion not to kill Bella. But you, I highly doubt that one bit!"

"Zip it, witch!" He called out to her.

"Enough fighting, already!" I shouted out. "Let's think about this some more, please…" I really don't want to make any rash decisions. I almost did that last time, it's not going to happen again.

"What could we even classify as a piece of damning evidence? Nothing that we found seemed to be helpful." Jean pointed out. Not that you did anything investigating.

"Yeah, the only thing we really found were the keys, and we already solved that mystery…" I said.

Robin took a few steps back from his podium. "Say, why do you think the monkey took the keys?"

I blinked a few times. "Because it's a monkey?"

"Why do you think the bird took the keys?" He asked then.

"Because it's a bird?" Look. I'm not an animal expert! Leave me alone!

He shook his head slightly. "While yes, maybe. They took it because it was shiny metal."

Serena realized what he was getting at. "Yes! Birds do love shiny stuff. Some traps to catch them involve leaving something that reflects the sunlight so they will dive down and get caught in the trap." She scratched the bird's neck. "Probably why this one saw the keys and grabbed them."

"Oh… so not trained, it just likes metal objects." I concluded, but then my attention shifted towards the tactician. "So why bring this up?"

"May I have the keychain?" He asked with a smile.

The huntress reached into her pockets, taking them out and tossing them to Robin. The bird looked like it wanted to fly up and catch it, but it remained still.

The tactician caught the chain, looking at it. "Interesting. We have two keys here…"

Lily nodded. "Yup! One of them is for the shed, the other is for the actual greenhouse itself."

Robin flipped over to the next thing. "Next, a golden leaf."

"Yup yup!" The florist nodded again. "It came with the keychain, plus, it looks so stylish, so I wouldn't want to take it off."

"And finally…" Robin stopped on the final one. "Some golden ring." He looked back at her.

"Yup yup yu- wait! No no no!" She clenched her first, puffing her cheeks. "That wasn't there before!"

"Ah." Seems like that's what he was waiting for. "What's stopping the monkey from taking this from someone it encountered, and adding it to the keychain?"

Serena thought for a moment. "Very likely, if it liked the chain because it was shiny, the ring would be something it might want to…"

"The ring could have gotten any day. Who's to say the monkey didn't attack someone on the first day of the motive?" Josef asked, looking around. "It could have kept it with him before eventually finding the keychain."

"Someone is getting flustered…" Enima commented.

The host looked away. "I'm not. I'm just saying that the ring could have turned up whenever. Who's to say it's even ours. People used to live here right? It's a nice ring, so it would have kept it's colour over the years."

"You did it…" Lily realized, before raising her voice. "It was you!" She shouted.

"I didn't do anything at all!" Josef seemed to be getting angrier. "Give me proof that I did anything to her! You think I'm just someone who goes around murdering people!? Because right now, it's nothing but baseless accusations!"

I took a deep breath. "I might not remember what it looked like, but I could tell you had one. Show us your ring!"

"My what…?" He blinked a few times. "Like I said!" He lifted up his hand, revealing that he had no ring. "It was taken the morning the animals all invaded. But if I revealed it was mine, you all start accusing me right away. And I wouldn't be able to defend myself…"

O-oh… Well, he seems to be honest right now.

Josef pressed his cane against his head. "To think you would use that to accuse me… Can't you see, someone else is leading all of this in my direction."

"Yeah!" Enima snapped her fingers. "It's me."

"See, the witch-" He started to say.

She tilted her head. "What? Oh, no. I didn't kill anyone. I just think you did it."

I let out a small sigh. "If Josef didn't have his ring when I woke up that morning, than obviously it must be true that it was stolen, and he had nothing to do with it… But…" I titled my head over to the side. Is it really that easy to prove if he did have it or not…? I glanced over at his hand. I know he had a ring on when I first met him, but when did he ever lose it? "I'm drawing a blank here…"

Historia shook her head. "Typical… Well, allow me to step in." A small smile appearing on her face. "If the monkey took that ring a few days ago, doesn't it seem rather… clean?"

"Clean?" Lily repeated. "What do you mean?"

Cameron grinned. "Right, if it was taking a few days ago, the monkey might have banged it up, and might have… done other stuff to it."

Enima slammed her hand down on her open fist. "Coc-" She started to say before being interrupted.

"Don't finish that sentence." Daniella said rather coldly before jumping into the debate. "But she's right. There's no way it would be in that condition after that many days. Which means… it must have been taken recently…"

Josef ran his hand through his hair. "Oh? You think so? Then if the monkey took it, it should be damaged or ruined anyways, so what's the problem with that? What's stopping the damn monkey from ruining it."

Oh, then that answer is obvious. "The thing that stopped the monkey was the plant that Lily had! It activated a severe allergic reaction, which the monkey tried to run off, and it died before it could do anything."

"Ngg!" Josef gripped his cane tightly, like it was almost going to break apart.

I pointed towards him. "Just give up already!"

Caren pointed towards him. "You're the bastard who killed such an innocent child." Pretty sure she was like four months younger than you.

"You will be brought to justice!" Lily yelled out last. He killed the wrong person, indeed.

"Then, I say it's finally time to vote." Enima said with a grin, reaching over to vote.

I brought my hand closer to the button, and I didn't get anything from it, so I pressed the button to vote Josef. Since time didn't slow down, this couldn't be a bad choice.

We all pressed down on our buzzers.

"I won't accept this!" Josef yelled out, angrily. "Me, the killer, please?"

Still wasn't going to agree to the choice. "Then fine! Let me spell it out for you from the start!"

.

"Act 1: The night before the murder, the killer must have headed out of the temple to get what they needed. Since it was hard to get through the traps, they used their own cane to activate the ones they couldn't see. Once out of the temple, they headed over to Serena's Ultimate Lab to grab something they needed. It was paint that they would use to mark the locations of traps that they needed to remember to avoid the next night.

.

Act 2: Once that was done, they were ready for the night of the murder. Everyone went to bed like usual. Except the killer and maybe Jean, but he doesn't notice anything." "Hey!" "Continuing on. The killer grabbed Bella and started heading out of the temple. Because of the paint, they didn't have to even worry about activating a trap. From there, it was all smooth sailing. He brought her over to the greenhouse. He had to be the one to kill her after all if he wanted to escape.

.

Act 3: The killer probably went to find the keys to the shed, but instead, was met with nothing. Previously, a monkey had stolen the keys and trashed the place inside of the shed. However, the monkey wasn't done with him, and came back to attack the killer. He stole a ring and ran off also holding a rather poisonous plant. Which it eventually died to in the forest. Thinking nothing would come out of it, the killer moved on towards the shed after grabbing a saw of sorts.

.

Act 4: The killer couldn't exactly break into the shed because of the fact that an animal was sleeping nearby. If I had to make a guess, it was some kind of large cat because of the fur. Not feeling very confident with their ability to fight a large cat, they opted to use the saw to break the padlock. Once inside, they took what they needed. They could have grabbed both gloves, but giving that they only needed one, they only grabbed one.

.

Act 5: After grabbing what he needed, there was one more place the killer needed to visit. And that was the Ultimate Lab of the victim herself. He stopped by the desert section of the biome and broke open the glass. If he had known about the gympie gympie, as well as if the monkey had left that alone, he might have opted to use that instead. But they were no expert in plant life unlike some other people. Waiting for a bit, they finally spotted what they were looking for. Wearing the thick glove, they grabbed onto a scorpion and left.

.

Act 6: At this point, they had probably woken up Bella, who must have been confused on what was going on. I don't know what lie they told her, but she must have been rather trusting to them for this to even happen. The killer grabbed a knife from Serena's Ultimate lab, making Jack's lab useless in this case." "Hey!" "Continuing on, he led her to the forest and the two started to climb up the trees. The killer used the knife to help himself, because he couldn't exactly use his other hand that much. Bella, on the other hand, would have been decently good at climbing up trees because of her field.

.

Act 7: Once reaching a decent enough height, it became hard for them to climb up, so the killer offered a hand over to Bella to help her out. The poor girl couldn't see it coming and reached out to grab his hand. At that moment, she got stung by the scorpion. Her hand hit the side of the tree, leaving a little bit of blood, before she fell to her doom. She tried to break her fall with her arm, but it only caused it to become broken, as well as fracture her skull. Whether she died from the fall or the poison is irrelevant, and probably why Monokuma didn't specify it…

.

A murder like this, could have only been commited by you, Josef Osapuoli! The Ultimate Host!"

.

Everything was looking at him, some, angrier than others.

Josef, however, didn't say anything. He frowned slightly, but it was hard to see his full expression because of the sunglasses.

"Answer us!" Caren yelled out.

"Phuhuhuhu!" Monokuma laughed. "There's no need for him to answer you! I have the results." He stood up in his chair. "And the results say that Josef is guilty!" He let out another laugh. "Wow! Two for one! Congratulations guys! I knew you could do it." He lifted up one of his paws.

"Josef…" Lily held her hands against her heart. "Why… why did you kill her?" She had a few tears. "I could have been who died!"

He still remained silent. It seems he wasn't going to say anything.

Serena, the person standing right beside him, grabbed him by the collar. "Answer us!"

He grabbed her hand, pulling himself away. "This is no place for a person like me." He ended up saying.

Enima glared at him. "Oh, it wasn't even anything noble like Marcus. It was just for selfish human interest. Go figure." She waved him off. "Monokuma, get the execution ready!"

The bear tilted his body. "Are you sure?"

"Wait!" I called out. "I want to know more." I turned to look at him. "Why Bella?"

He shook his head, looking down. "It's like you said. It was easy to get her trust…"
.

"Bella…" Josef called out, shaking her awak.

The ecologist slowly opened her eyes. "H-huh…?" She looked around the forest. "Where are we…?" She then quickly gasped. "What about the motive!? We can't be out here!"

"Shh… It's fine…" He looked at the trees… "I think I found a way out… And I need your help."

She quickly stood up. "A way out? Then I will gladly help! Where is it?" She looked around the place.

Josef frowned slightly. "Monokuma thought we wouldn't be stupid enough but the trees are rather tall, so it's possible one of them will lead over the gate."

Bella's eyes lit up. "Oh, you're probably right." But then she tilted her head. "Why do you need my help?"

A small smile formed on his face. "I know animals tend to be nicer to you. When we were running away, none of them bothered to go after you. So I hope the same can apply here." He turned towards the tree. "It should be easy to climb for a bit, but then it will get difficult…" He started his climb up.

Bella didn't slack behind and she was able to keep up with him. "You know Josef…" She started to say with a sweet smile. "Back before Volvo had died… You were kind of mean to the others…" She frowned a little.

He had reached a higher up branch. "What…?" He turned towards her.

The ecologist blinked a few times. "What I mean is that you are starting to be nicer, which is great." She had a sweet smile. "I wouldn't want you to go back to the old you…"

Josef frowned slightly, watching her climb up with him. "Hey, Bella, do you need a hand?" He offered her one, which she gladly accepted.

.

"Why!? Why give her this false hope!" Lily cried out. "Why not just kill her while she's asleep, she wouldn't have had to know she was dying. Why wake her up in the first place!?"

Josef remained silent. She brought up good points. Why even wake her up? Give her false hope, just to rip it away from her.

"Answer her." Caren demanded.

Josef had his arms crossed, hand his hand tightened on his arm. "Maybe I was… looking for a reason not to go through with it at all. I still have a conscience."

"Then why go through with it after that's what she said?" I asked him.

He had an angrier expression. "Because I'm not changing. She basically told me "I'm happy you are changing, because you used to be a shitty person." When I'm the same damn person as I was before. That's just her calling me shitty now." He looked away. "I woke her up so that if I couldn't bring myself to do it, we would just head down. In that moment…" He turned away. "Whatever, not like any of you would ever care about this. I'm going to go down in the books as a heartless monster, after all."

"Tsk, well maybe it's because you are." Jean pointed out.

He turned to look at everyone else. "Oh please! Don't make me laugh. You think I can't see through most of you? From what I can see, most of you are assholes down to the core, doomed to never change. So who are you trying to be lecturing me? I did what I did, and I'm not taking it back. Soon, you'll find reasons to kill too, and you'll join me in hell."

I looked the other way, listening to him talk. He put a lot of emotion into his speech.

"And shouldn't you be pissed at someone else over me? Whoever the hell is running this game. I'm a host, but this is beyond fucked up alright? Even in my wildest nightmares, I never would have come up with a killing game." He pressed his cane against his head.

"Josef… Calm down…" I told him calmly.

He let out a small sigh, lowering his cane. "I don't want to be trapped here forever, and it seems I'm getting my wish. Like it was granted to me by a twisted genie"

"I've prepared a very special punishment for Josef Osapuoli, the Ultimate Host!" The bear said with glee.

He remained silent for a few seconds. He reached over to pull off his glasses, revealing his eyes for the first time. They were a nice light blue. "This is no place for a host like me… But, even with the host gone, the game must go on."

"Let's give it everything we've got!" The bear continued.

He sent a glare towards Monokuma. "So, do what any good competitors would do, and win this."

"IT'S… PUNISHMENT TIME!"

He turned towards Monokuma completely. "I'm ready for my execution!" He bowed slightly. "Give me your worse."

Josef Osapuoli has been found guilty! Time for punishment!

.

Josef was sitting down on a chair on stage, looking around at everyone. He seemed to be on some sort of game show. In the audience was a bunch of Monokumas.

.

Josef Osapuoli, Ultimate Host's Execution: The Show Must Go On!

.

Josef tried to stand up from his chair, but he soon realized that he was stuck to it. He heard footsteps, and his attention shifted over to it. He saw someone who looked strikingly like him, except instead, he was almost completely covered in shadows. The only part that had any light, was the red eyes, and the white grin. Even if he could see the eyes, the figure still looked like he was wearing the same star shaped sunglasses.

The figure turned towards the sea of Monokuma's, twirling his staff, before pointing at a wheel with it. The audience erupted in applause. He nodded his head before spinning the wheel.

The first thing it landed on, was a simple balance beam challenge.

Josef let out a small sigh before his vision faded away. When he woke up, he would be standing on top of a tightrope. The only difference from what he could see, was that certain doom was beneath him. Taking a deep breath, he started trying to cross it. He didn't have any issues and he was on the other side.

The wheel spun again, and his vision faded again. He didn't get a good look this time, so it could likely be anything.

When he got his vision back, he would be avoiding swinging axes. He made it through that with nothing but a scratch. And his vision faded. That's when he started to hear the voices of the audience chanting "Don't stop til you drop!" It was likely that he was going to be force to keep doing this dumb game show challenge until the day he died.

Whatever dumb thing they could come up with, he did. He had to jump into a ball pit filled with venomous animals to nab a key. Luckily he avoided the worst. Another time, he had to hold onto an electric eel as it shocked him, almost taking him out.

At one point, he had to eat a live spider just to keep going. Just how much more could he take of this? If it was anyone else, could they have handled it? The next thing Josef had to do was place his hand in one of the mystery boxes. He didn't like the sound of it, but he chose box number three. That was a horrible choice, because he quickly felt something devouring his hand bit by bit, when he finally pulled it out, it's like insects had started to eat away at his hand. Most of the bones were visible, and barely any skin remained. He wanted to scream out in pain, but no. That was no way for a host to react to a gameshow. He had to keep going.

But it only got more dangerous than this, being left alone in a room with a dangerous animal. Grabbing something of even higher voltage than the electric eel. His heart almost stopped, but it kept beating. The show must go on, after all.

What finally got him, however, was the last game he did. It was a game of chicken where he had to stand on a thin platform. When he wished to get off, he could, but if the host deemed it too early, he would pay the Ultimate price. His own life. A lot of things came at him, and he managed to not get hit by any of them. Of course not, they weren't meant to hit him anyways. Finally, a loud noise could be heard as two stone pillars were heading towards him. He smirked to himself. This would be the one that they would think he'd jump off at. It still seemed way too early so he stood his ground.

Unfortunately, that was the wrong choice this time, as the two swinging stone pillars crushed his head when they collided with each other. He stayed standing up for a few seconds, before Josef's body collapsed and fell down into the abyss below.

.

This one was just as awful, even people who would have been happy to see him gone, like Caren or Lily, were horrified by this. Lily was hiding her face, while Caren looked away, disrutbed.

"That's…" Caren mumbled… She looked ready to puke.

"Hey! Cameron hit his podium. "When will you stop this, Monokuma!"

The bear simply laughed at his question. "Oh, silly one, there is no end to this despair. Puhuhuhu."

Jean ran his hand through his hair. "I'm just… ready to go to sleep…" He mumbled.

"Please tell us you kept your promise and the place is cleaned up…" Jack mumbled to himself.

"Of course! A promise is a promise after all. The entire city is free from those animals and vines!" His attention shifted towards Serena. "All except for one!" He seemed ready to attack her bird.

"Fly." She said to it as he flew off, leaving out an open window.

This seemed to only anger Monokuma. "No pets allowed!"

She simply shrugged at that. "Whoops."

I turned around, heading towards the elevator. "Like Jean said, I need sleep after a day like today." I want to sleep forever, but like Josef said. A cruel genie would probably just kill me off in my sleep.

The remainder of us all gathered into the elevator as it slowly headed back to the hotel lobby. None of us really said anything. We were too dumbfounded about what just happened, after the elevator arrived, like Monokuma said.

"He was right, it is rather clean now." Daniella noted. It was just like nothing had happened. She checked the time. "Well, it's almost dinner. Anyone care to join me for supper?" She did a curtsy and started to head off.

Cameron followed her as well as a few others. But me, Caren, Jean, and Lily decided that it was good enough to call it a night.

"See you ladies tomorrow…" Jean called out as he left for the stairs.

Yeah… sleep sounds good right about now…

.

On the outskirts of town, behind the forest, stood a man. He had a cloak on him as he watched the city from a distance. He couldn't get too close because of what appeared to be guns mounted on the wall. Suddenly, he heard something and looked around, seeing something approaching him. A small smile appeared on his face, barely visible as the cloak covered most of his face. "Perfect…" He mumbled to himself.