A/N: This gonna be a long one!

The courtroom was deathly silent as no one wanted to speak up first, and not to mention, no one knew where to begin. Niles glances around the room and despite his inner desires wanting to make everyone squirm even further, he knew that this was not the time since his life was also on the line here. He looks at Rantaro, knowing that the green haired male knew how these went and gauges his body language to figure out if he should keep his mouth shut completely. But, before he could make a decision himself, Kaede decided to break the silence all of them were tiptoeing on.

"So, we should probably start with the basics yeah? As we all know, Ryoma died due to bleeding out from the two slits on his neck at 3:07PM," Kaede says.

"And where are you suggesting we go from there Kaede?" Tojo asks politely.

"Well that's an obvious one! The murder weapon, right? It was probably some sort of knife!" Kaito butts in.

"That's all we can safely assume. There was a knife missing from the knife block but it wasn't in the sink as there were no dirty dishes in the sink," Shuichi confirms.

"I can attest to that. After lunch was prepared, I thoroughly cleaned all the dishes that had been left over," Tojo says.

"So at the moment, you're the last one to see all of the knives that were there. Can you tell us which knives you used to prepare lunch?" Niles asks. He didn't think it was Tojo, but they need all the information they could get.

"I had used the chef's knife and the paring knife," the Maid answers. "Which one was missing?"

"I'm not well versed in knives but from what I remember seeing before, it was a long, thin blade with a pointed tip. About 8 inches long," Shuichi informs.

"Ah yes, that would be the slicing knife. I suppose that could be used for causing small slits on someone's neck," Tojo says, grimacing a bit at the thought.

"Okay, so we know the murder weapon and we know it's missing from the kitchen... Tojo, when did you leave the kitchen?" Rantaro hums out thoughtfully.

"Hmm... Approximately quarter past one," Tojo answers.

"Alright, so the murderer has to be someone who went to the kitchen between 1:15PM and 3:07PM," Miu says.

"Well, three people can attest to being in the cafeteria at 3PM... Tsumugi, Ange and Gonta," Shuichi hums out.

"Ah yes! Tsumugi was going to have a divine cup of tea with me as I painted her!" Angie smiles. Tsumugi blushed a bit.

"Right, I took her offer as I was surprised that she wanted to paint plain old me.," Tsumugi nods.

"Gonta? What about you?" Kaede asks, looking to the hulking male.

"Gonta was in the cafeteria to see if any bugs had come in!" Gonta answers with a happy smile.

"Oh, additionally, Gonta was already in the cafeteria before me and Angie entered," Tsumugi adds on.

"Well Shuichi, can one of them be the killer?" Kokichi asks with a head tilt. A pair of hands slam down viciously onto a podium, causing everyone to look at the source of a sound - a fired up Tenko.

"Impossible! They were in there at 3PM when that obnoxious music started! No way that Ryoma could have died in seven minutes!" Tenko bursts out. Shuichi rubs his face a bit upon Tenko's exclamation. He looks to the short purple haired male.

"We can't rule them out quite yet. Additionally, no one else mentioned the cafeteria and as long as they got there before Gonta and after Tojo, they would have no need to mention the cafeteria or kitchen," Shuichi says. "So we're still at square one on who could be the murderer."

"Might I offer a solution? We start from when the body announcement was made and work backwards?" Kiibo suggests. "Considering that the murder weapon led us no where really."

"Yeah! Good idea Kiibo! Maki was leading me, Shuichi, Rantaro, Niles, Kaito, Kiibo, Miu and Kokichi to Ryoma's body. She had discovered the body," Kaede says.

"Well that brings up a few other questions - we know that three people need to discover the body. I think it's safe to assume that the murderer doesn't count unless they're with another person?" Rantaro says, directing the question towards Monokuma.

"Yup! That is correct! If the murderer were to join up with two people and then later arrive at the scene of the crime with those two, that would INDEED trigger the body discovery announcement!" Monokuma confirms.

"Thought so. As I was saying... We now have more questions with that statement and the knowledge of the body discovery announcement. Besides Maki, who were the other two people who discovered the body? Was Maki the first or second person to discover the body?" Rantaro prompts the others.

"Well, who's to say that Maki isn't the murderer then? She's been awfully quiet, nishishishi~" Kokichi smirks. Niles couldn't help but roll his eye. He thought it was too early to cause chaos in the trial.

"...You of all people should know that it's not me Kokichi," Maki says, glaring at the Supreme Leader.

"Maybe I do, maybe I don't~ After all, can you really trust what I say? Everything could just be a lie!" Kokichi grins.

"Let's ignore that degenerate. We can't trust anything he says!" Tenko says, glaring at Kokichi.

"But he does bring up a good point. How do we know that Maki isn't the murderer and then later counted as a witness? Or was she never one of the three?" Korekiyo brings up, yellow eyes roaming. Maki sighs heavily.

"Rantaro and Niles can vouch for me. I am not the murderer," Maki says, fiddling with her pigtail again.

"Oh! What an interesting revelation! Is this true you two? You can vouch for Maki not being the murderer?" Korekiyo asks, tilting his head.

"Yup," Niles answers simply. Rantaro nods in agreement to Niles.

"Kinda sketchy answer there, but with three people, assuming Kokichi does know, we can for now assume that Maki isn't the murderer," Kaede says. Niles places his hands on his podium and leans forward, his blue eye hardening as he inspects the people who weren't with him when the announcement went off - Korekiyo, Angie, Gonta, Tojo, Tenko, Himiko and Tsumugi. The latter three seem to squirm a bit under his gaze with different reactions.

"Hmmm... Perhaps one of you lovely ladies have something you wanna say~?" Niles prompts, smirking a tad sadistically. He was going to gently apply pressure, starting with his gaze and a small smirk. Himiko tugs her hat down to hide her face. Tenko sees how uncomfortable Himiko was and she focuses on Niles again, the desire to round house him in the face growing ever stronger.

"Quit being a creep Niles!" Tenko shouts. The Outlaw then brings his gaze to the angry female.

"Have something to share with the class then Tenko? Did you set off the body discovery?" Niles questions. He notices that the brunette seems to shrink a bit in response.

"...No. I was with Himiko in my room..." Tenko answers, looking down and pressing her pointer fingers together. Niles rolls his eye dramatically to show how annoyed he was.

"Well, that gives us something," the white haired male says dryly as his eye wanders over to the Cosplayer. The blue haired girl notices that Niles's cold, piercing, blue gaze was now centered on her. She fidgets a bit under it before speaking up.

"Gonta and I saw the body and set the announcement off," the Cosplayer finally says. "After Angie came back into the cafeteria panicking," she then adds on. Niles pinches the bridge of his nose for a moment as he was starting to realize how incompetent most of these people were. Rantaro noticed how irritated Niles was getting and couldn't help but chuckle quietly as that had been him once. He refrains from reaching over to pat Niles on the shoulder.

"Now, was that so hard to say? Or were you hoping no one would question an incompetent, plain old girl like you?" Niles sneers, using Tsumugi's own words against her in an insulting manner in conjunction with a straight up insult.

"MOVING ON!" Kaede says loudly, noticing that Niles was getting very hostile with everyone now. She wanted to prevent the really cruel side of Niles from coming out so she decided to intervene and get the conversation going again. "So we know the order of discovery - Maki, Angie, Gonta and Tsumugi."

"Ah, but now we have the question as to why Angie and Maki were there in the first place. We know Gonta and Tsumugi went there upon Angie returning in a panicked state," Korekiyo hums out.

"My answer is quite simple! As I stated earlier, Atua wanted me to paint Tsumugi for my next masterpiece! However, I was out of some paint and went to the storage room to get some. Upon entering, I saw Ryoma's body strung up like a martyr!" Angie answers. Niles immediately snaps his head to look at Angie, the word paint striking a cord within him.

"Paint you say? How coincidental. During my investigation, I found a bottle of pink paint..." Niles trails off.

"Oh? Was something suspicious about this bottle?" Rantaro asks, genuinely curious. He hadn't seen the bottle and Niles didn't tell him about it.

"Well, instead of one of the many shelves, there was just one lone bottle of paint on the floor behind the mats," Niles says. He was keeping the blood bit secret for now.

"What a strange place for a bottle of paint," Tojo hums.

"Well, since we're talking about the crime, why don't you fuckin nerds give us the facts for the idiots who weren't there?" Miu suggests in a manner that doesn't include her as an idiot.

"Ah yes. Niles, Rantaro, could you two tell us what you found there since you two were inspecting it while I was gathering alibis and non-crime scene evidence?" Shuichi prompts the two. While he still wore the hat, he wasn't hiding under it anymore as he was growing more confident since this was his place to shine.

"Right. Given how the blood pooled beneath Ryoma, he was strung up before he died, meaning he was knocked out," Rantaro starts.

"And lo and behold, upon further inspection, I found a wet spot on Ryoma's beanie. Underneath was an indent," Niles adds on.

"Well, that's definitely possible, given this happened in the storage room after all..." Kiibo says.

"What caused the indent?" Maki asks.

"A shot put," Niles says. He noticed out of the corner of his eye, Kaede winced reflexively. "And the shot put that was used is missing."

"How do you know? It could have been in the bin," Kokichi asks, head tilting.

"Simple - I asked Kaede about the shot puts," Niles says, throwing Kaede right under the bus, completely unbothered. Twelve sets of eyes turn onto the blonde in question.

"Now why would Kaeidiot know about that?" Miu asks, arching a blonde eyebrow.

"Do tell Kaede~ And we'll know if you're lying~" Kokichi says with a taunting tone. Kaede sighs before taking a deep breath to steady herself.

"I knew the amount because I had almost killed Rantaro," Kaede says. "Shuichi and I set up cameras by a secret door in the library to try to catch the Mastermind. I thought if I could kill the Mastermind then, it would end the game. Turns out Rantaro and Niles had triggered the cameras. The shot put fell short and wouldn't have killed Rantaro even if Niles didn't save him."

"Whoa- Kaede- I didn't think you would have had it in you!" Kaito says, purple eyes widening in shock.

"Upupupu~ The one who talked about harmony tried to murder! Oh the irony!" Monokuma laughs.

"Anyways, with confirmation from Kaede, there was a missing shot put. Couldn't find that either sadly," Niles says, frowning.

"Niles, was there anything particular about the paint? You mentioned that for a reason..." Shuichi says, having picked up on the fact that Niles was leaving something out. He almost had the answer pieced together.

"Ah yeah. I took a whiff of it and it was mostly blood."

"And where was the bottle again?"

"Behind the mats. Now that I think about it... It was a good hiding spot."

"But you would have to be pretty short to hide behind that," Shuichi hums out.

"Well, the people who would be able to hide behind the stack of mats would be Himiko, Ryoma, Ouma, Kiibo, Angie and Maki," Rantaro starts out, catching onto what Shuichi and Niles were thinking. "Ryoma is dead, Himiko was with Tenko, Ouma and Kiibo were in the video room at the time of death. Which only leaves Angie and Maki," he says, narrowing down the possible candidates. Shuichi takes a moment to put together all the information they had pieced together. His eyes then snap open and his arm shoots out, his pointer finger aimed at who he believed the culprit was.

"Angie Yonaga! You're the culprit!" Shuichi accuses. Niles smirks cruelly, he was seeing the pieces fall into place now.

"What? Me? Why me?" Angie asks, starting to sweat. "I did no such thing!"

"Bullshit Angie. You're just a pathetic excuse of a human, using the will of a so called god to carry out your twisted desires. Afraid to die so you took the opportunity to kill a poor, innocent person to save your own hide! And everyone thinks I'm the disgusting one. How low you have stooped!" Niles starts, laying into Angie to break her.

"Not true-"

"Selfish."

"No!"

"Pathetic!"

"Stop it!"

"Twisted~"

"Shut up!"

"Disgusting lowlife!"

"I said, SHUT UP!"

"Confess your sins little one! Confess your sins to your Atua!" Niles grins widely. He could see how angry Angie was and knew she was just about to break. No one dared to stop Niles, not when they were this close to solving the murder.

"I DID NOT KILL RYOMA! YOU HAVE NO PROOF!" Angie shouts, gripping her podium tightly causing her knuckles to turn white. Niles cackles in response.

"Oh how wrong you are! Shuichi~ Mind laying it all out for everyone who haven't caught on~?" Niles calls out. Shuichi gives a nod of affirmation.

"Right. So this all starts at 3PM, when the annoying music started playing on loop with the disturbing video on all of the TVs. At the same time, the culprit had invited Tsumugi to the cafeteria to have some tea and be painted. Gonta happened to also be in the cafeteria when the culprit and Tsumugi arrived. The culprit then went to the kitchen to get the tea, and grabs the missing slicing knife out of the knife block. Given the culprit's belt and coat, the knife was easily concealed. Upon getting back to the table, the culprit realized they were missing some pink paint and excused themself to go to the storage room to get some. Upon entering they see an unsuspecting Ryoma and that's when the plan of murder was solidified.

"Around the same time that the culprit entered the storage room, Kaito, Miu, Kiibo and Kokichi entered the video room, witnessed by Niles and Rantaro. Niles and Rantaro then entered the library to investigate what we believe is the door to the mastermind room, which caused the camera trap me and Kaede set. Kaede sent a shot put in an attempt to kill the mastermind when the rigged cameras went off. We arrived a few minutes to find neither of them harmed. Kaito, Miu, Kiibo and Kokichi entered the library shortly after.

"Going back to the culprit, they grabbed a shot put and cracked Ryoma over the head with it, knocking him out but not killing him. After Ryoma fell unconscious, the culprit found some rope and started to string up Ryoma by his wrists between two support beams. The culprit takes the knife and makes two slits in his neck and starts to gather some of the blood to use with the remnants of their pink paint. There's a bit much blood, hence the blood pool beneath Ryoma's body. As the culprit begins to clean up, they hear foot steps approach the door and in a panic, they run over to the mats and hide there, knowing the mats would hide their small body. Enter Maki who sees the body and she runs off to find the others to alert them of the murder.

"After Maki takes off, the culprit takes off to the cafeteria, feigning panic about Ryoma's murder, forgetting the bottle of paint and blood behind. The culprit tells Tsumugi and Gonta to go to the storage room, saying that Ryoma was dead, having them trigger the body discovery announcement. After Tsumugi and Gonta run off, the culprit most likely discarded the shot put somewhere but wasn't able to clean the knife in time before the announcement went off. The culprit waits in the cafeteria as everyone comes to the cafeteria.

"I hope this is enough proof for you! The only one capable of such an artistic and messed up murder is you - Angie Yonaga, Ultimate Artist!" Shuichi explains. The courtroom falls silent as 15 sets of eyes fall on the Ultimate Artist. Eventually she cracks, tears welling up as she falls to her knees.

"Okay! I did it! Atua suggested I take someone's life to save everyone!" Angie confesses, tears now streaming down her face. Most people look away.

"Monokuma... I believe we have our answer," Rantaro says calmly, looking up towards the split bear.

"Wonderful! It's voting time! Please cast your votes on the selection screen before you by selecting the student you think did it!" Monokuma explains. After some time, all the votes were cast, and on the large screen that was now behind Monokuma, a slot machine appears. Three portraits of Angie line up and lights spelling out GUILTY! appear. "Ding ding ding! Yooouuu'rreee correct! Ryoma Hoshi's killer is Angie Yonaga, the Ultimate Artist! It's punishment time! GAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" the bear exclaims before smashing a button with a mallet.

After a moment's pause, a chain comes snaking out from the top of the courtroom towards Angie. The collar opens up and then clamps around her neck before yoinking her up into the ending. The podiums then sink into the ground as the walls around them fade from their wallpaper design to reveal a very large wraparound screen to be the true wall of the courtroom. The screen flickers to life, revealing Angie in a shrine which everyone could only assume was to Atua. Seeing nothing around, Angie sits down and starts to meditate. Two divine arms reach out and grab her arms, stretching them out, her blue eyes snapping open as the MonoKubs run out with a large hammer and chisel, the grips having blades on them. As the divine arms force her to grab the tools, a cry of pain escapes her lips while the MonoKubs bring out a large lump of sculpting clay. Atua moves her at an inhuman speed, chiseling the piece of clay into Monokuma. The blades continue to dig into Angie's hands, blood running down her arms. When the sculpture was finished, one of Atua's hands lets go and pats Angie on the head. It then picks up the sculpture and drops it onto Angie's weakening form, squishing her and ending her life and the execution.