The next chapters, including this one, will be named after anime songs, because why not? Also, I put two author's notes in the chapter, you can skip them if you want. They just give more insight on the story and the writing process that goes into it. This chapter is a lot longer than the others, so sorry about that. I didn't want to break it up for this chapter specifically because it would make it a lot harder to follow and understand.
Also, I just realized I haven't mentioned this publicly yet (I've mostly just thought about it), but thank you to everyone who has favorited, followed, or reviewed this story or me! It definitely means a lot to know people are actually reading this! If you ever have any concerns or suggestions, just leave a comment or pm me, I do take all of that into consideration when writing.
"He's not talking, Crystal."
"I know, maybe it's time for some torture." Green looked at Crystal confused. He never thought she would suggest something like torture, especially against one of their friends.
"Let's just keep him locked up in here. He'll talk eventually. For now, let's just discuss what to do next with the others." Green moved the topic away from torture.
"Starvation torture, I like it. We haven't eaten since we got here; he's probably already hungry." Crystal almost looked excited.
"Yeah, no." Green said as he pushed the door open as he and Crystal walked out. The others immediately turned their attention to them as they walked into the room.
"So, um, he's not talking. We're going with the guilty until proven innocent method, so he's going to be locked in that room until he talks." Green explained.
"But I really feel like he's innocent!" Y spoke up.
"I agree with you on that."
Everyone in that room besides the owner of the voice jumped.
"When did you get here?"
"I've been here for about 12 minutes. You guys didn't notice me?" Platinum was standing amongst the crowd of people gathered in the room.
"No!" The Gossip Gang yelled.
"I wasn't hiding or anything; never mind. I see X has passed away. What were the circumstances of his death?"
"Wait, hold on!" Red yelled.
"You've been missing for hours, and then you just show up!" Crystal was angry.
"Well, yeah."
"Where have you been?"
"Here and there."
"Ugh!" Crystal stomped her foot on the floor, shocking the others. Crystal was a very levelheaded person, and simple teasing like this would only irritate her. However, she was overreacting quite a bit right now.
"If you must know, I was locked in a room." Platinum decided to stop teasing Crystal. Her answer shocked a few. Namely, the search team.
"Wait, we-"
"Save the questions for later. It seems like Crystal wants to get to the bottom of this murder mystery, and I have an idea. We'll share all of the information we have in a debate-like fashion. First, though, I need to investigate." Platinum explained.
"Oh, like Danganro-" Y started.
"You guys already got a head start on the investigation, so I have to catch up." Platinum interrupted her.
"Like Danga-"
"I'll have to examine X's and Yellow's bodies."
"DANGAN-"
"Of course I'll need eyewitness accounts too..."
"I feel like you're doing this on purpose." Y sighed as Platinum giggled. She then started her investigation. Crouching down, she thoroughly investigated X's body. In his pocket, she found a key and a note. Platinum stood up and walked to the door. Sure enough, the key fit into the door's keyhole. Next, she read the note to herself quietly.
"This room you guys have locked yourselves into will be permanently locked in five hours. Everyone inside will either die from starvation or dehydration. With this note, I give you an extra key so you can sneak out and lock the door behind you. Do not leave until after the fourth hour, and if you tell anyone, I will kill you; if you leave early, I will kill you; if you stay in the room, you will die."
Platinum noted that the note was not signed. She put both in evidence bags she got from who knows where. She went back to the body but saw nothing noteworthy. She flipped the body over and began to investigate the wound responsible for his death. The wound was on his ankle, and anyone would be able to tell that it was death by electrocution.
By process of elimination, it can be deduced that X was killed by some sort of stun gun. Obviously, the weapon had to have been modified to be able to kill him nearly instantly, but the stun gun would have made it so someone could have killed him from a distance.
Moving on, Platinum looked for anything noteworthy about the room itself. The room looked like a hotel room, with bland walls and a single bed with bland sheets. One wall had a full-length mirror attached to it, with a closet adjacent. On the opposite side of the bed, there was a vent that extended from the ceiling to the floor, curling out at the end so that it faced the base of the bed. The vent was open. The was a dresser against the far wall, and next to it was a door leading into the bathroom.
The bathroom was relatively simple. There was a toilet and a sink. There was no bath since there was a large bathhouse for all the guests to use. The sink was in front of an oval-shaped mirror and on top of a cabinet. Inside of the cabinet was just some toiletries, materials for people to have "fun", and some towels.
"Alright, I would like some eyewitness accounts now. Anyone willing to speak with me, I would appreciate it if we could talk in the hall." Platinum spoke up. Crystal immediately turned her back to Platinum, with Emerald, and Green following. Blue held back her laughter before whispering to Y and Moon.
"They look so stupid, turning their backs to her all at once." Y sighed.
"They're so childish."
Platinum left for the hall, and Diamond and Pearl followed.
"Missy! Where have you been?" Pearl asked.
"I-we were so worried about you." Diamond added.
"I appreciate your concern, I was worried about your safety as well." She said to the two boys.
"However, right now we need to investigate the deaths of two of our friends."
"Yeah, but we want to know where you've been and if you're alright!" Pearl urged her to answer.
"I'll tell you later. Right now, I need to know about what was happening during the crime."
"Why won't you tell us!" Diamond insisted.
"Because it could put me in danger!" Platinum for the first time in a long time had shone genuine fear in her voice. The boys recognized this and stopped questioning her.
"Well," Pearl started, "we found Yellow here in the north hall. We had recently met up with Black the garden. He had come from the east hall, and we were just leaving the west hall. Everyone was shocked, although I do remember Black's reaction was pretty lackluster, almost as though he had already seen it."
'He's definitely on the Black's guilty team.' Platinum noted to herself.
"Well, as for us, we were just sitting in the room. No one was really talking. We heard the search team go by, and X just collapsed a little after that. It's likely, someone on the search team was the murder." Diamond said.
'And he's on the same team.' Platinum added.
"Thank you, that clears up the picture a little. When you go in, tell them whoever else wants to talk can come out in the hall."
Diamond and Pearl looked at each other.
"Sure..." The boys walked back into the room, and the Gossip Gang came out next.
"Oh no." Platinum already knew of their reputation from the few minutes she was with the rest of the Pokédex holders.
"Thank you for speaking with me." Platinum said politely.
"Oh, no problem!" Blue waved her hand.
"We wanted to speak with you anyways!"
"Well, I just wanted to ask about what was happening around the time of the victim's deaths." Platinum explained.
"Well, Blue and I were on the search team, looking for you and the others. When we met up with Black in the garden, he was coming out of the east hall, so I doubt he murdered Yellow. There wasn't any way for him to have killed her, leave the north hall, enter the east hall and wait for us, and then find the body with us in the amount of time it had been since Yellow was killed when we found her." Y told her.
"Girl, that was confusing as hell." Moon said
"Basically, Yellow was probably killed after we had joined up with Black."
"Why didn't you just say it like that the first time?"
"Detail! Everyone wants detail!"
"Umm..." Platinum grabbed their attention, "so what happened closer to the murder?"
"Well, her body was in the last door we checked, which is kind of suspicious." Y thought out loud.
'Maybe the killer thought to put Yellow at the end of the most convenient route.' Platinum decided.
"It couldn't have just been good strategizing on the killer's part though, since we would skip some doors and meet back in the middle, meaning Yellow's body was found somewhere in the middle of the north hall. Actually, it was rather close to where the defense team was." Y continued.
"Are you psychic?" Platinum asked.
"Huh?"
"Never mind."
"Sonia Nev-"
"Anyways, I think that's all I needed to know." Platinum cutoff yet another Danganronpa reference.
"Hold on! Wait!" Blue yelled.
"We need to talk to you about Ruby!"
"Okay..." Platinum was skeptical.
"So, we totally think he's in love~ with Gold." Moon had hearts in her eyes while saying "in love."
"?"
"So, what's your opinion?" Y asked.
"I guess I could see it." Platinum said. The Gossip Gang then showed her the scary amount of evidence they had gathered up, much of which seemed either illegal or impossible to obtain.
"So what do you think now?" Moon inquired.
"I believe it 100%."
'This could prove as useful blackmail.' Platinum thought.
"Thank you for your opinion!" The girls giggled as they walked away. Platinum sighed as she collected her thoughts.
"Hurry the hell up, or we're gonna have to lock you in the room with Black." Crystal said as she walked out of the room.
"Are you sure you have the power to do that?" Platinum smirked. Crystal bit her lip, a bit of blood coming out.
"Just come into the room within the next ten minutes, everyone's waiting." Crystal turned and walked back into the room, but not before snatching a harsh final glance at Platinum. Deciding it was best to not keep everyone waiting, she followed her into the room.
'I have enough evidence to prove my innocence, I think.'
The remaining dexholders stood in a circle-like shape, ready to begin the debate-like thing. They had moved into the next room over after Emerald's many complaints about X's dead body "being right there".
"So, let's start this thing. The first topic is..." Ruby trailed off, leaving someone else to choose the first topic.
"Platinum and Black's wrongdoings." Crystal quickly added.
"I believe we should be innocent until proven guilty." Platinum sighed.
"So you admit that you're guilty!" Emerald smirked.
"No," Platinum once again sighed, "it's a famous saying. It means that we should be viewed and treated as if we are innocent until someone finds damning evidence against us"
"Oh." Emerald looked down to the floor, dejectedly.
"So, Black is suspicious since he snuck out right after we discovered Yellow's and X's bodies. Obviously, he couldn't have easily murdered them, but he could be conspiring with the murderer. Platinum is suspicious since she was missing for a long period of time, and she knew about the murders when she showed up." Crystal stated.
"I think that Platinum isn't very suspicious." Moon shared her opinion.
"Why? if anything, she's the most suspicious." Crystal said.
"Well, I agree that her disappearance was a little suspicious, but she said she was locked in a room until recently. I know we can't just believe everything she says, but if we believe that, it sounds a lot like someone pinning the murders on her." Moon argued.
"But I don't believe that or anything she says." Crystal argued back.
"Okay, putting that aside for now, if we believe that someone who was not present in the room at the time was the murderer, Platinum was not the only suspicious one. For instance, Gold was and still is missing." Moon furthered her statement.
"Well... uh, I guess you have a point on that," Crystal reluctantly admitted, "but that still doesn't explain how she knew all about the murders!"
"Come on Crystal, you're losing your game! That can easily be refuted; Platinum discovered Yellow's body on the way to us from wherever she was, locked in a room or not, and easily figured out what happened when she arrived at the room with us and X's body." Blue deduced. Crystal's features morphed into those of anger as she started tapping her foot against the floor. What happened next shocked everybody within the Old Chateau.
"Kyaaaahaaahaaaahaaaa!" Tears of laughter streamed down Crystal's face.
"You all are so stupid! Stupid, but I am so smart!" She began to make weird movements, barely able to contain her laughter.
"Platinum MURDERED Gold, kyahahaha, and then murdered the OTHER two!" Her words were randomly accentuated.
"And your evidence?" Crystal stopped laughing and stared coldly at Platinum.
"I think Platinum meant to say that there isn't any evidence to support your claim." Red laughed nervously.
"What evidence do I need, kekekekekeke." Crystal put her hand in front of her mouth as she laughed.
"You need evidence to convince us of her guilt. If we pass judgment without proper evidence, we could find out that she was innocent later." Y politely explained.
"But that doesn't MATTER since the slut, AKA Platinum, is guilty! Kyaaaaaaaahaahaa! Let's all send her off to hell!" Crystal's eyes looked devilish.
"No Crystal. Calm down, we have not found her guilty yet!" Green glared at her.
"She isssssssssssssssssssssss. You all know it in your hearts! Riiiiiiiigggggggggghhhht SUN! Crystal tilted her head upside down to look at Sun, who was behind her.
"Uh, yeah." He muttered uncomfortably.
"Don't give in to her!" Moon yelled.
"Why?! Nyahaha! Do I make you uuunnnnnnccommfortabbbllleeeeeeeeeee?" Crystal dragged out her words.
"My god! That is uuunnnnnnccommfortabbbllleeeeeeeeeee to look at!" Y was practically vomiting.
"Umm." Diamond was looking for an opportunity to speak.
"Weeeeellllllllllllllll, what are weee waiting fooooooorrrrr?.?.?" Crystal bent over backward.
"Let's punish her!"
"Uhh." Diamond muttered.
"Like hell, you will!" Pearl's eyes were filled with flames of determination.
"You won't lay even a finger on missy!"
"Ohhhh reeeeeaaally?" Crystal jumped across the room before sticking out her pinky finger and using it to poke Platinum's cheek.
"You're asking for it!" Pearl lunged at her, but he was held back by Red.
"Don't do something you'll regret." Pearl looked back at Red.
"Let go of me! I need to protect her!" Red saw the desperation in his eyes and almost faltered for a moment, before taking notice of something.
"But I think she can take care of herself."
"No, I need to protect her!" Pear struggled further.
"Just look." Red said, letting go of Pearl to point at the scene unfolding in front of them. Platinum had grabbed Crystal by the wrist and twisted, pulling her to the ground. It was a simple act, but along with Red's words, it told him so much.
"Oh." Pearl said as a single tear fell down his cheek. He smiled and silently walked back to his spot.
"Huh?" Emerald asked, not understanding the situation. Blue, who was practically bawling, turned to him to explain.
"Pearl's very *sniff* protective of Platinum, but Red's made him realize that *sniffle* she can take care of herself now. So... emotional!"
"Umm, Platinum, you're going to have to unhand Crystal. And Crystal, leave her alone." Ruby sighed.
"Ahhaaahaahaaa!" Crystal laughed as she made her way back to her spot, looking very drunk.
"Ughh," Platinum sighed "I can't deal with her."
"I don't think any of us can. Honestly, this behavior of her should be shocking us more, but after all, we've been through today, it's just another item on the list." Ruby huffed.
"Alright, I need to know everyone's position on the matter. Even you, the melancholic duo over there." Platinum pointed at Green and Emerald, who hasn't spoken much in this debate.
"Everyone, one at a time, tell us if you think Black or I am guilty of any of today's murders. I'll go first, I believe neither of us is guilty."
"I agree." Blue voiced her opinion.
"I think that as well."
"I conquer." Y and Moon agreed with their fellow gang member's opinion.
"I think Black is guilty." The Sinnoh boys said at the same time; however, Pearl's voice almost completely drowned out Diamond's.
"I have to agree with them." Ruby admitted.
"Yeah, I think the same." Red agreed.
"At first I thought they were both guilty, but from our discussion so far, I'm starting to be convinced of Platinum's innocence." Sun muttered, but as if he suddenly remembered something, he glanced fearfully at Crystal.
"Kyaahaahaaaaa! They're both guilty as fu-"
"No offense, but I think you're both guilty." Green announced.
"Yeah, I also think they are both guilty." Emerald laughed uncomfortably.
"Alright, interesting." Platinum muttered.
"Huh?" Blue asked.
"Out of the mixed answers we got, nobody thinks that just I am guilty. Maybe I do have a shot at proving my innocence." She answered Blue.
"You go girl!" Blue slapped her back while laughing.
"Ow." Platinum sighed.
'This is why I keep to myself.'
"Alright, enough of this shit. The slut's gotta falsify her innocence or whatever." Crystal spat out.
"Yes, thank you for your kind words, Crystal. I can prove Black's innocence off of my innocence, I think, which can be proved by the timeline of everything." Platinum introduced a new topic.
"Goddamnit, this is all going in circles. A timeline would only hinder your claim, Platinum. Plus, It's the least believable matter of evidence." Green suddenly went on the offense.
"Hmm?" Platinum faced him.
"We will believe you if you get real evidence." Green furthered his statement.
"HMm?" Platinum repeated.
"Are you as deaf as you are dumb? Find some actual evidence to prove your innocence." Green sighed as he shook his head.
"HMMMMMMMMMMMM?" Platinum tilted her head.
"Seriously?! How many time do I have-"
"That's enough Green." Blue struggled to contain her laughter as she put her hand on his shoulder.
"As I was saying," Platinum smiled at Green, "I was searching for Diamond and Black with groups two and three, before going missing around 8 pm."
Emerald and Red, who were on the combined team said it was true.
"What had happened was that the group was walking too fast for Yellow, so I had slowed down to accompany her. Somehow, as we were walking, I was suddenly someplace else, alone. Yellow and the combined group were gone." Platinum narrated.
"How?" Sun asked.
"Kekekeke." Crystal laughed like Korekiyo (A/N: I'm sorry, that will be the last Danganronpa reference for a while)
"Sounds like a made-up story to me." Green sighed.
"I don't know guys, some supernatural stuff has happened. I w-was there when i-it happened to W-White." Diamond stuttered. Green looked at him before sighing.
"I guess we can't rule out the possibility yet."
"After some wandering, I discovered that I somehow made my way into the basement..." Platinum trailed off.
"What is it?" Pearl asked, worried.
"I think that we should bring Black out here, ya' know since we're proving his innocence." Platinum said. Almost immediately, the room burst out into noise.
After a long, long discussion, Green went to bring Black into the debate-like-thing room. Opening the door he heard a gasp. Black was facing the other direction, fumbling with something.
"What?" He called out. Green shook his head.
"You were doing something, weren't you."
"No!" Black called back out. Green could see that the tips of his ears were red.
"I'm going to open the door again in two minutes." Green sighed as he closed the door.
"That was close," Black muttered to himself, "can't have him find out I'm keeping a diary!"
Black was told they were having a debate to prove his innocence, and that they thought he should be there. He was surprised Green had allowed it but was happy to be out of the room.
"!" Black was shocked that Platinum was there and he made a small noise. She just shook her head and sighed.
'Oh yeah! She made me promise not to tell anyone about our whole deal until she says it's okay!' Black recalled.
"Oh, I guess I forgot to mention the whole mess with Platinum." Green sighed before briefing him the details of Platinum's appearance.
"I get it now," Black said.
"Alright, I will continue my story now." Platinum announced.
"I was wandering around the basement, wondering how I got so lost. By that point, I hadn't realized I wasn't just bad with directions. To my surprise, a Pokémon, gengar, came up and tried to attack me! So, I sent out my empoleon and had it use hydro pump... right into a support beam."
"Wait, you brought your Pokémon!" Emerald yelled.
"Yes, I know that doesn't help my situation, but I only brought them since this place honestly frightened me a little. I also only brought my empoleon and my rapidash..." Platinum trailed off before frantically reaching for her Pokémon.
"Wha- how?!" She looked scared as she held the two Pokéballs in her hands.
"What is it!" Red yelled, confused and worried for her at the same time.
"It's not possible! I was thinking about too much at the time, but I had reached for my rapidash first, before going with empoleon since rapidash's Pokéball wasn't there!" Platinum panicked.
"Maybe you misplaced it?" Sun asked the statement as a question.
"That again- oh never mind." Y sighed.
"That's what I thought, but the Pokéball is here now!" Platinum ignored Y. After a half-hour of discussion, they settled on calling the incident an "I don't know".
"Moving on, the attack went right through the gengar and hit a support beam. Said support beam and parts of the roof came crashing down on top of me. Luckily, I had looked at my phone not long before this happened, so I know this was around 8:40 p.m., and I woke up again around 9:20 locked in a room." Platinum continued their previous conversation.
"You just woke up, locked in a room?" Red asked.
"That doesn't make sense!" Ruby exclaimed
"We searched everywhere!"
"No," Blue replied smugly, "we found a locked room."
"In the east hall, by the basement. It would make sense for her to have been in there." Moon added.
"B-but we called out to see if anyone was there! Missy would have responded to us." Pearl yelled, before covering his mouth. He had accidentally made a statement that went against Platinum's case in his confusion.
"Yes, the search team did pass by. Around 10:37 if I remember correctly." Platinum replied.
"That is correct, actually." Ruby replied shocked. He had been in charge of documenting important details about their search.
"Why didn't you let us know you were in there! We could have let you out!" Pearl was the one who had said this.
(A/N: I don't know why I want to share this with you; but, I do. You can skip this if you don't want to read it. I had three responses from Platinum outlined here: "Because I didn't know if it was really you guys", "Let's save that for later, we need to move on for now", or "It was for this reason; I wanted to stay locked in the room so I could prove my innocence. I figured that I was going to have the murder of Yellow pinned on me since I survived the attempted murder on me. Although, I didn't expect X to be murdered". They all basically lead to the same result, but the discussion in between would be different since each response would lead to different levels of suspicion on Platinum. Response 1 would have low suspicion; a medium level of suspicion for 2; and high suspicion for 3. After much thought, I decided to go with response 2 over 1, since 3 wouldn't be as fun to write, and 2 condenses this already very long discussion and chapter.)
"Let's save that for later, we need to move on for now." Platinum brushes Pearl's concerns off.
"Sounds like you just don't have a good answer for him." Green smirked.
"Hmm?" Platinum smiled at him.
"I said-" Blue covered his mouth.
"Go on."
"Alright, I got out of the room just after 11:30. Before you attacked me, I figured enough time had passed to prove my innocence, so I checked the door. To my surprise, It was unlocked!" Platinum said.
"Uh, I'm going to attack you. The door was unlocked? This whole time you've been going on about how you're innocent because you were locked in the room!" Green was irritated by her conflicting statements. Platinum sighed as she shook her head.
"I said don't attack me. I mentioned the fact that the door was unlocked 'to my surprise'. I didn't know it was unlocked because it had been locked the entire time before. So, my claim remains upheld."
"You expect us to believe that!" Emerald exclaimed.
"I mean, yeah? If you believed what I said about me being locked in the room, might as well believe that it had unlocked without me realizing it and that I was in the room that whole time." Platinum reasoned.
"You have a point, I guess, but I don't believe you!" Green was blushing a little.
"So what next?" Red asked, trying to move along this never-ending discussion.
"Well, I was out of the room around 11:36. I stopped by the kitchen to grab a snack. I met up with the group while black was being interrogated around 11:55, and you guys noticed me around twelve minutes later." Platinum wrapped up her story.
"That is the least convincing evidence I've ever heard." Green deadpanned.
"Hmm?" Platinum tilted her head.
"IsaidthatistheleastconvincingevidenceI'veeverheard"Greenspokehiswordsreallyfastsoitsoundedlikeonebigword.
"HMm?"
"Okay! We are not doing this again!" Blue was exasperated.
"By the way, that ugly thing Green just said reminded me of how weird Crystal was acting." Y muttered.
"Oh yeah, where the hell did that bitch go!" Pearl gritted his teeth together.
"Um, she's right there." Diamond pointed to the floor by the bed. There, Crystal was lying, dead asleep. Red sighed before going and shaking her awake.
"Hnn?" She made a sound, slowly waking up.
"Why the fuck is your ugly mug the first thing I get to see when I wake up?" She yawned.
"Damn." Red sighed.
"How long have you been out?" Blue asked.
"Kyahahahahaahaaaaaaa! Ya' miss me or somthin'?" Crystal laughed.
"The last thing I remember was excLAIMing the two's guilT?" She answered. She looked around before seeing Black.
"Ugh, you're back." She sneered. Suddenly, she turned her frown upside down, literally. She did a handstand as she laughed.
"Nyuaaahahahahahaagaaaa! You guys are IDIOTS! Idiots I Say!" The others decided to ignore her for now.
"So I've given my claim." Platinum recapped.
"Yes, and it was stupid!" Emerald yelled.
"I think it was very informative." Y defended.
"Yeah, so much knowledge has come from it." Blue reinforced her statement.
"It's like a tree of knowledge blessed us insignificants with a fruit, filled to the brim with knowledge." Moon has stars in her eyes, oddly enough.
"That's too much." Blue and Y sighed.
"So, now for the evidence." Everyone was shocked by what she had said. Now her words made more sense. All of what she had said was her claim, so now she's giving her supporting evidence.
"More conversation?" Diamond sighed.
"Well, I don't have much, but I can prove that I was locked in the room. I have video footage of me checking the lock, and being in the room from 10:10 to 11:05." Platinum presented her evidence. Green, Pearl, and Blue acted as representatives in checking the video and its credibility. The file was too large to share by methods other than cellular data, which they did not currently have.
"Why these times though?" Blue asked.
"Well, I didn't really think about it until around 10, and I ran out of storage at 11:05." Platinum laughed a little.
"I know you show the clock in the room at the beginning of the video, and it has the time in the corner through the entirety of the video, but that could have been easily falsified." Green stated.
"Do you think I brought a full computer setup here? It's not easy to do that stuff on just the phone. And besides, when else would I have had the time to film this video?" Platinum countered.
"Uhh, you live in Sinnoh." Green pointed out.
"I guess, but even if I had planned this entire massacre, I couldn't have predicted every event. Look here," she skipped the video a bit, "this is when the search team knocked on the door."
The Pokédex holders debated for a bit, before deciding the video was sufficient evidence for her alibi.
"Alright, here's the tricky part. Yellow was discovered at 11:15, and X was killed at the same time. That means there is a ten-minute window that I have no evidence for my whereabouts." Platinum sighed.
"Yeah, but I doubt it would be easy to pull off." Pearl reasoned.
"Yes, but still possible." Green muttered.
"If I may, Yellow could have been killed while Platinum was in the room." Moon added.
"Yeah, her body was warm, but that only means she had been killed within, let's say, a half-hour of when we found her." Y said.
Crystal, who had dozed off again, suddenly joined the conversation.
"Nyah, uh-uh! You need to think back to when we found her. There's key information!"
"What do you mean!" Sun yelled.
"I don't think there was anything else important." Ruby muttered as they all thought back to the scene.
"The blood!" Blue gasped.
"Kekekekekeke!" Crystal laughed in affirmation.
"That's it! The blood... was still, flowing... from her wounds." Ruby struggled to say.
"Youuuuuuuuuuuuu got it!" Crystal applauded.
"So, she was killed... minutes before we found her." Y gasped in shock.
"I guess that means I'm still a suspect." Platinum realized.
"Okay, I've been thinking about this for a while, but if they were killed by the same person, wouldn't the search team have seen the killer. When they passed by after killing Yellow on the way to X." Red wondered.
"You're a genius," Blue put her hands on Red's shoulders, "I have an idea, let's take a field trip."
The teens went to the scene of Yellow's murder, and Blue began feeling up the walls.
"Should be around here somewhere..." she muttered, "aha! Found it!" She pressed a button that was disguised as part of the wall. The floor rumbled slightly, before revealing a hidden underground passage. Blue led everyone through it, and then they got to a dead end.
"What now?" Asked Sun.
"Well..." Blue said as she put her hands on the roof. With a push, part of the roof came off, and everyone crawled out. Placing the floor/roof block back in place, Blue smirked, content.
"Platinum is now officially innocent." Blue exclaimed.
"What?!" Emerald was shook.
"I guess I can see it now." Green scoffed. The crowd had mixed reactions to the statement.
"I don't think we are all on the same page here. Let me set y'all straight. Platinum couldn't have murdered both. In assuming her guilt, we thought she would have murdered either X or Yellow. But now we know the murder is the same person, with this secret passage and all. After whoever killed Yellow went through this passage, they killed X." Blue proposed.
"Wait wait wait, why couldn't it have been Platinum. She could have used the secret passage. Actually, she's more likely to know about one, with the number of times she's been here before." Emerald presented his logic.
"She's innocent because- oh." Blue giggled as she scratched the back of her head.
(A/N: Sorry, another note. Blue was actually supposed to be smart here, the flaw was in my thinking. I had to make Blue seem like an idiot for my mistake. I thought way back earlier that Platinum would only be suspected of murdering X since Yellow would be impossible for her because of timing and people being in certain places. However, I accidentally wrote that she was suspected of murdering both, and rewriting it would take way too much time. She would have been innocent because the secret passage is one way [which I didn't write in because it is no longer important] so she couldn't have gotten from X to Yellow. Green agreed with Blue because he was following my logic, and he is also very tired. Now that I think about it, that logic would have been flawed anyway since it was already known that Yellow was killed first. I should stop writing these a 2 am...)
"Thanks for the effort, but I think I got it from here; Black?" Platinum announced. She snapped Black's attention back to the conversation.
"Platinum and I have been colluding this whole time." He said nonchalantly.
"Gasp." Moon said out loud, and once again everyone shifted their attention to her.
"Damnit, you did it again." Sun sighed. Platinum mouthed a thank you to Moon and she responded with a thumbs up. *
"I'm sorry to have lied to you all. I had to do it so the more stubborn ones would suspect me less while I tried to prove Black's innocence." Platinum apologized.
"Lying's not cool, especially in this situation, but we get." Blue smiled as she gestured towards her gang.
"Thank you, now I will explain the full, truthful story."
She took a deep breath.
"After I woke up from the collapsed support beam incident, I was locked in a room. That part was true, but the difference was that Black was in there with me. He had brought me into the room since he thought I was dead, and he locked the door since he was upset and didn't want to be bothered."
Black was nodding as she continued her story.
"He woke up and then we discussed this plan. I had hypothesized Yellow's murder and it being pinned on me, so I had him lock me in the room while he met up with the people searching for him. I started the footage sometime after he left; he didn't know about it. You know the rest."
"Wait, you knew she would be murdered, and did nothing about it!" Red flared up.
"I'm sorry, I still feel guilty. Although, I had to make the decision I did. Whoever the mastermind is, they have complete control over this place. If they pinned the murder on me, that would cause more unsolvable discord and confusion." Platinum explained herself. Red was still angry, but he stayed silent.
"So, the video recording was not cut off, I edited the bit with Black unlocking the room and his conversation with me out for obvious reasons." She showed them the video.
"So that's where he went." Sun exclaimed.
"We never had any reason to suspect him in the first place..." Diamond realized.
"Now that's where you're wrong, kekekeke," Crystal spoke for the first time in a while, "we should be suspecting everyone. And that's why I'm outta here. Peace."
Crystal walked out of the room. Everyone was momentarily frozen in shock, but by the time people went after her, she was already gone. Deciding it would be better to let her go, they resumed the discussion.
"I still suspect you though, why is it a separate video?" Emerald asked.
"That was because it cut it off of the original, as I explained before, but my device really didn't have enough storage for both the edited video and the full video." She explained.
"Well, how can we know it's not a separate prerecorded video?" He questioned her.
"Well that..." she had a desperate look in her eyes, "y-you're just going to have to trust me on that. I honestly don't have anything else to prove my innocence."
"I see." He said
"Well, I guess now it's time for a vote. Who trusts Black and me?" Platinum said. Everyone except for Green and Emerald immediately raised their hands. After much consideration, Green also raised his hand.
"I guess I'm the only one. Fine then. We can move on." Emerald resigned. Relief flooded Platinum.
"T-thank you so much! Thank you, everyone! Let's move on to how the murders were committed." Platinum had a smile on her face.
'I guess I didn't really think about it, but she must have been terrified this entire time too.' Black thought.
"So the main clues I found were this note and key, and brown hair by the doorway. The note and key were likely from the killer, and I believe it was to make him stand by the door. The note was very threatening, so he was definitely going to do it, and the killer could have easily gotten to him from under the door." Platinum presented her evidence.
"Makes sense." Ruby muttered and the others nodded their heads.
"As for the hair, it could be anyone's, and not even necessarily the murder's. Most of us have brown hair anyway so-" Platinum was cut off by a sudden scream. A look of sheer terror fell over his face before he darted out of the room and down the hall.
Everyone dashed after him, but Black was the first out of the room. He ran down the hall and turned the corner.
Blood.
Blood.
Blood.
So much blood.
* If you didn't get it, Platinum was thankful because Moon purposefully distracted everyone to lessen the impact of what Black had just said. I didn't want to write the explanation into the story because I know from experience that it gets annoying when so many explanations are shoved down your throat, but you already realized whatever it was.
I am finally done with this chapter! I've been writing this since January (I am writing this bit here 4/22) because I could not write for more than 10 minutes at a time. Like once a week. I really struggled with the investigation part at the beginning since even though it seemed really short, it is paragraph heavy. I also have to map out how each clue affects the story later on. After that though, I was able to write the discussion easily, but it honestly took pretty much a whole week to write. Sorry if certain topics such as Pearl realizing Platinum can be independent seemed too short to be believable or emotional enough. Believe it or not, this chapter is a very condensed version of what I had originally wanted to write; I had to cut down a lot of the elaboration, which is strange since I usually struggle to elaborate and make the chapters longer than 1,500 words. Speaking of which, this chapter is once again the longest I ever wrote, being past 6,000 words.
On another note, sorry if this chapter or even this arc in general was boring. As you might have guessed, this was kind of based on a Danganronpa class trial (which are very long, I now realize this is because every detail and clue must be fleshed out to be made believable and the characters have to develop along with the trial). This is because I wanted the characters to get together and share the information they know, and to delve more into the mystery side of the story (which I hope I can explain and hint at throughout the story). I felt this was a nice way to wrap up the arc and set everyone on equal footing before starting something new.
I also kind of want to hear who you guys think the mastermind is (like a character, multiple characters, or an outside force). You can put what you think in the comments, or maybe I'll put up a poll (I've decided not to). Next chapter will be called "Deal With the Devil".