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Chapter 15

. Naegi woke up to Monokuma's announcement on Day 4 with a sense of melancholy.
. "Day 4. Within the first two days, our numbers were whittled down from fifteen to thirteen. At this rate, they'll be another death today. And another trial."
. He got up and went to the kitchen. And there was Togami, drinking his Luwack coffee as usual.
. "Good morning, Naegi."
. "Morning. Seen anybody else?"
. "Ishimaru came in for several bottles of water. He was claiming he had a stomachache."
. "Wouldn't have checking the storeroom for some medicine done him better? I'm sure I saw some things in there."
. "In any case, I never expected any of us to get sick."
. "Why?"
. "Well, we're in a closed system. The only germs in here come from us. And as none of us were feeling ill on that first day..."
. "So you're saying something is wrong."
. "I'm saying that that sauna battle between Oowada and Ishimaru may not have been the best idea. Especially with Ishimaru taking a tumble like that afterwards."
. "You heard?"
. "Of course, I heard. Oowada was in here earlier in this morning, muttering about it."
. "Yeah, he fell into the back of a chair, and then onto the floor."
. "Good morning, gentlemen." Celeste had entered.
. "It seems a shame. Day 4, and even after two deaths and a second floor, there seems to be no more sign of leaving then there was on Day 1."
. "I'm not surprised." Togami said. "If anyone knew of an easy way out of here without resorting to murder, wouldn't it have been executed by now?"
. "So the solution is to put our heads together and come up with something, right?" Naegi said.
. "No." Celeste said. "This is a practical thing. Even if we could come up with a plan, most, if not all potential candidates for implementation would require the element of surprise. And if everybody knew, the chances that Monokuma would find out and be able to prepare drastically go up."
. "Not bad. You seemed to have figure out as much." Togami said.
. And then Fujisaki walked in.
. "Fujisaki, what do you think is going to happen for Day 4?"
. "Day 4? Well, it's the 'Dawn of the New Day', so there's that."
. Togami pounded his fist on the table in frustration.
. "Dang it, Fujisaki. What's that reference now?"
. "Majora's Mask. Why?"
. "I think Togami's not used to people making references that he doesn't get." Celeste commented.
. "Oh no, his world view is expanding." Naegi snarked. "Call the authorities, the great Byakuya Togami is starting to realize the world can't be quantifed using libraries and financial theories."
. "Shut it, Naegi."
. "No, Togami. I don't think you get this. We're all trapped in here. Quirks and all. So if Fujisaki wants to continue to make references until the cows come home fine, Chihiro can do that. I'm willing to listen and pick them up and understand them. Besides, it's very helpful for keeping our minds off of this situation."
. "So you're trying to run away?"
. "I'm trying to say that you can't tackle every problem all the time. Everybody needs breaks."
. "Don't run away from your problems."
. "I'm not running away. I'm just advancing towards a solution in an alternate direction."
. "A clever one-liner and a quip. Is that all you have?"
. "No, it's not."
. "Your so-called luck doesn't count either. SDHSL Luckster is the stupidest title for an entrant to Hope's Peak I have ever heard of. And this is coming from someone who thinks the titles for Shaman and Otakus are stupid."
. "So what? I can be more than a Luckster."
. "Then prove it. Develop a skill here that no one else has. It's not like you have much else to do."
. "He could try being the SDHSL Harem-Master." Leon said, casually walking in with his arms behind his head.
. "What?" Naegi said. "I don't follow."
. "You've got Maizono wrapped your finger. You've got chemistry with Kirigiri. And Enoshima apparently liked you enough to protect you with her very life. Huh, what's wrong?"
. "Nothing."
. "We're not idiots, Makoto Naegi. Something Leon Kuwata said has clearly bothered you." Celeste said. "Now what is it?"
. "None of your business. See you guys later." Naegi said, walking out of the cafeteria.
. "That was mean, Leon." Fujisaki said.
. "What did I say?"
. "How obtuse of you." Togami said. "The last thing Naegi needed to reminded about was Enoshima."
. "Oh yeah, good point."
. Asahina passed Naegi on the way to the cafeteria.
. "Hey, what's wrong?"
. "Nothing."
. "You seem rather melancholy today. Cheer up!"
. "Yeah."
. "Did someone say something mean to you?"
. Asahina busted down the cafeteria door with Naegi in tow.
. "Alright, which one of you said something mean to Naegi?"
. "Don't look me." Togami said.
. "I think your attention needs to be directed at Leon." Celeste said.
. "Hey, don't put me in this position." Leon replied.
. "Leon, what did you say?" Asahina scathingly asked.
. "Hey, Togami was saying that Luckster wasn't a legitimate talent. So I made a joking suggestion that Naegi could become the SDHSL Harem Master instead. And it reminded Naegi of the fact that Enoshima had literally laid down her life for him."
. Asahina paused for a moment. "Huh."
. "And with the way you reacted to seeing Naegi melancholy, apparently that's a viable statement."
. Asahina blushed. "Oh uh, my bad."
. Naegi started laughing.
. "Why is there all this laughter?" Yamada walked in.
. "Oh, it's nothing. We were just discussing how Naegi can get girls to fall for him so easily, he might earn the title SDHSL Harem-Master." Leon chuckled slightly. But there was a distinctive edge to it that Celeste failed to miss.
. "As SDHSL Otaku, I have experience with harem works. I have decided to insert one into my most recent work." Yamada said. "But the twists and turns for each of the love interests winning the main female's heart will be sudden and unexpected. I could say more, but I risk spoiling it."
. "Hey, Yamada, unless one of them turns into a goat or is like secretly an assassin or something, spoiler warning, nobody cares." Naegi snarked.
. "Master Makoto Naegi, why would I make one of my males turn into a goat?"
. "Wait, do you mean a goat like the animal, or the G.O.A.T.?" Asahina asked.
. "What the hell does G.O.A.T. Even stand for?" Leon queued.
. "Greatest Of All Time." Asahina replied.
. "Right."
. "Goat the animal?" Naegi said.
. "Okay. Why a goat?" Fukawa said. "I overheard this conversation before I walked in. No, seriously, making a character turning into a mountain goat would be an absolute terrible idea."
. "So when are you going publish that romance novel?" Leon quipped.
. "Hey, I just said a goat." Naegi said. "You turned it into a mountain goat."
. "Whatever."
. "You'd have to make it a doctor/medical student in human form!" Fujisaki suddenly interjected.
. "What?"
. Fujisaki sighed. "It's a reference to the Time Meddler serial from Doctor Who. 'But I'm not a mountain goat, I prefer walking to climbing any day.' It's said by the First Doctor."
. Togami facepalmed. "I'm out of here. I'll be in the library. While you lot are talking about assassin goats and stuff, I'm going to actually learn something."
. "Hey, assassin goats wielding AK-47s and shit. I'd totally be down for seeing that as a movie." Leon said.
. "If you want to see a flop, that is." Celeste said. "It'd be a miracle if its Rotten Tomatoes score was anything better than absolutely atrocious."
. "The CGI would be absolutely terrible. But the idea still isn't as insane as a Zelda game set on Mars." Fujisaki said.
. "A Zelda game on Mars?" Naegi said. "I disagree. That's way more plausible than a bunch of assassin goats."
. "Hell, let's go all the away, let's make it a goat who can breathe underwater!" Leon said.
. "So a goat that's also part fish?" Yamada said. "You just described my Western zodiac sign, the Capricorn."
. "Oh, another note, the tropic of Capricorn is the southernmost latitude where the sun can be directly overhead." Fujisaki said. "It and the tropic of Cancer for the Northern Hemisphere are the borders of the tropical zone and the temperate zone. Or as I like to say, the tropics are the boundaries between where you can get coconuts and where you can't get coconuts."
. "Back to the Monty Python references, again, Fujisaki?" Celeste asked.
. "You betcha."
.
All of a sudden, Monokuma made an announcement.

. "Everybody gather in the gymnasium. I have an important announcement."
. Soon, everybody except Ishimaru had gathered into gymnasium.
. "Where's eyebrows? I suppose someone can tell him later. Alright, it occurs to me that this game is being seriously derailed by all of you bonding. Even with Togami being a massive prick."
. "HEY!"
. "Since this game is stalling, I've decided to incentive a second murder."
. "If you murder one of your classmates and get away with it, here's a bunch of money totaling to two million."
. Ten people were stunned. Only Togami had anything to say, and he wasted no time attempting to deconstruct the motive.
. "First off, what units? Are we talking about American Dollars, Yen, Euro? I hope you're not talking about Canadian Dollars. Not to mention the exchange rates, and where did you get it? I imagine suddenly printing two million would destabilize the currency."
. And suddenly, the air thickened. Murder was in the air. And it wasn't leaving anytime soon. And then Naegi realized that Monokuma had said nothing about a time limit. Maizono looked worried the most.
. Now, Naegi was worried. If Monokuma had motives lined up and ready to go, why hadn't he unveiled them before now? He had manipulated Oogami into attacking him. Was he not confident enough in the desire to get out?
. "More importantly, will someone actually take the bait?"
. The idea of one of the people he'd grown accustomed to murdering someone else bothered him.
. "Glad to know I still have a conscience, but what can I do?"
. While everybody else spent the rest of the day avoiding each other, Hagakure sat in the A/V Room.
. "A Murder motive? Huh. I wonder what happens now."
. Hagakure glanced at a box.

. "You can come out now, Fukawa."
. "Yes, my White Knight."
. "What were you doing?"
. "Watching you read."
. "Why?"
. "Because you're my White Knight."
. "Why?"
. "What?"
. "Why?
. "I'm sorry?"
. "Why do you consider me your 'White Knight'?"
. "Y-y-y-o-u're an intellectual."
. "Interesting. I am indeed quite the intellectual."

. The next morning everybody except Ishimaru, Oowada, Hagakure, and Yamada had gathered together to discuss the motive.
. "Money? How uncreative." Celeste said.
. "Regardless, to some people, money is money." Togami said. "And people can always use money."
. "You're the heir. You have plenty of money already." Leon said.
. "I can make that amount of money by investing anyway." Togami said. "I'm good enough at the stock market. Sure, it'll take me four to six months, but assuming the markets don't collapse or do anything screwy, I can do it. I've done it several times over."
. "Are you even allowed to do the stock market?" Naegi asked.
. "I am Byakuya Togami."
. "That's ... not an answer."
. "Anyway, so what do we do about it?" Fukawa said.
. "There's nothing we can do." Celeste said. "Unfortunately, he's chosen a motive that we have no safeguards against. Unless Togami wants to start dishing out his personal fortune as collateral against murder, there's really nothing we can do."
. "Yeah, plebeians, that's not happening." Togami said.
. Maizono's anxiety was getting worse. "There's going to be a honest-to-goodness murder this time. It's not going to be double KO like last time. There's going to be a murder and the only thing we can do is avoid being the victim and try to have alibis whenever possible. And I would have thought that those videos would have been his 'motive' for a murder. Maybe he's saving them for later."
. And then Oowada burst in.
"Alright, you bastards, which one of you did it? Which one of you murdered Ishimaru for the money?"
"What?"
"Ishimaru's dead. I know, Monokuma just let me into his room."
. Fukawa instantly scurried away from the scene, afraid of Oowada.
. The rest of the class just stared in shock.
. "Where's the body?" Togami asked.
. "In his room." Oowada replied forlornly as he punched a side table.
. The other seven people still in the room went to Ishimaru's room where Monokuma's announcement played. "Ding Dang Dong. We got a corpse here."
. "Wasn't there supposed to be a second half to that announcement?" Naegi muttered.
. Ishimaru lay there. He was shirtless. Except for the lack of color in his skin, and a few bruises, there was nothing to suggest that he was dead. His eyes were wide open, and his room was immaculate as expected.
. "There's no murder weapon. There's no trace of anything." Maizono said.
. "His room key is still in his room." Asahina said.
. "So this is a closed-room death." Togami said. "This one's going to be interesting."
. "So we need to figure out how to the culprit was able to get in, finish Ishimaru, and get out. And all without leaving any external marks beyond a few bruises in the ribcage."
. "You know, Fukawa could actually take a look at this crime scene." Togami remarked. "There's no blood."
. "Speaking of Fukawa, wasn't she in the cafeteria this morning?" Celeste asked.
. "Yeah, she ran off." Togami replied. "Maizono, you find her. Naegi, go get Yamada. Leon, go get Hagakure."
. A total of twenty minutes later, the three students had been retrieved with Yamada and Hagakure sporting the appropriate looks of horror.
. "There's no blood on Ishimaru." Fukawa said. "And Maizono has told me, it's a closed room."
. "So I assume I should stand guard with Master Mondo Oowada again." Yamada said.
. "Speaking of Oowada, where is he?" Celeste asked.
. "Nobody's seen him?" Togami said. "Maybe he just doesn't want to deal with Ishimaru's death."
. "That's not good." Naegi said. "We need him to guard it the crime scene with Yamada while the rest of us search around places. I think the storeroom is a good place to start."
. "Why don't we have Hagakure join Yamada on guard duty until we find Oowada?" Togamisuggested.
. "That's not a bad idea." Celeste agreed.
. "Well, without anything even remotely leading to a murdering weapon, we don't know where else to check?" Leon said. "There's no murder weapon to start with. Nobody's seen him since even before Monokuma's motive yesterday. So the time of death isn't even known."
. "I guess Monokuma's not giving us a Monokuma file this time." Togami commented.
. "Maybe because the basic info would make it so obvious whom the murderer is." Celeste said.
. "So that's another lead." Leon said. "I'm off to the storeroom now."
. "Guess inductive reasoning isn't so bad after all, is it Celeste?" Togami commented.
. "No, I suppose not." Celeste admitted. "Well, I'll take my leave and look for something on the second floor that could have caused those bruises."
. "Alright. Take Fukawa with you."
. "Why?"
. "She's spent almost as much time on the second floor as I have. She has a good eye."
. "Thank you Byakuya." Fukawa swooned.
. "Get going you two, even though Monokuma hasn't appeared yet, there's bound to be a time limit."
. Meanwhile, Monokuma watched from his secure location.
. "I wonder if I should tell them yet. Naa. It wouldn't matter now. There's going to be a trial anyway. Speaking of which I need to let Kyoko Kirigiri out. I did promise them that Kirigiri would return to them for the investigative period of the next trial."
. Monokuma went down to the room.
. "I'm letting you out Kyoko Kirigiri. There's been a murder. And it wouldn't be fair if you didn't know what was going on for this trial."
. "What? There's been a murder."
. "Oh yes. Out you pop."
. Kirigiri gratefully rode the elevator up to the first floor. Monokuma had neglected to mention who had been killed.
. "Kirigiri!" She was greeted by Maizono and Naegi.
. "Hey, you two. Who died?"
. "Ishimaru."
. "Ishimaru? That's disappointing."
. "Yeah."
. "I'll ask you to fill me a more detailed manner later, Naegi. What are the main events?"
. Maizono pouted at that last request.
. "Well, not much, actually. Monokuma actually introduced a motive yesterday to induce a murder and judging from Ishimaru's corpse, it appears to have worked."
. "What was the motive?"
. "Two million."
. "Two million what?"
. "Funny thing. Togami had the exact same response. But do the units really matter?"
. "As long as they weren't Canadian dollars, I suppose."
. "And Togami said the exact same thing about that as well."
. "Analytic minds think alike."
. "I thought the phrase was 'Great Minds Think Alike'."
. "We're getting off topic. So, as far as we know, someone killed Ishimaru for two million."
. "Yeah."
. "Do we have a time of death?"
. "No. There's no Monokuma file. And Ishimaru hadn't been seen alive since even before the motive had been introduced. As far as I know, Togami was last to see him the morning before Monokuma introduced the motive."
. "How interesting. Then Togami is where I'll start."
. "Kirigiri? You got something, don't you? Something the rest of us aren't seeing. Mind sharing?"
. "Not until I see Ishimaru's body. I'll need to see the corpse. This is our going to be a first real test here."
. Naegi sighed.
. "What is it, Naegi?" Maizono asked.
. "Well, I just realized that even if we figured out who killed Ishimaru, there's still going to be one less of us. We just got Kirigiri back and now we're going to lose someone else. We're going to end up with eleven any way you look at it."
. "Charming sentiments. But we'll lose everybody if we don't solve this case." Kirigiri said as she walked over from the red doors back to the dorm area.
. "I have a question. Why would anybody be using the sauna right now?"
. Naegi and Maizono exchanged glances.
. "I'm going to take that as a 'This might be very bad.'"
. The three dashed over to the sauna. There was a bunch of tape on the front of the door, and it was bolted into place with a pair of scissors parallel to the door, wrapped in duct tape. The dial was turned up to the max. Kirigiri immediately shut off the sauna,and went to work undoing the scissors from the door. It slid open.
. "Ding Dang Dong. We got a corpse here. We'll be holding a Class Trial pretty soon, so make good use of the time you've got."
. And upon hearing that announcement, the rest of the students froze in place.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've got most of Chapter 16. (Or enough to be confident in Chapter 15's finish)