"A dead body has been discovered! All students please report to the first-floor hallway! The investigation has officially begun. After a short time, we will hold a class trial to determine who the blackened is!" Pikachu's maniacal voice blared over the PA system, but I barely paid attention to it. After all, Barry's dead form was lying limp in front of me. The ultimate mewtuber was lying face down with a knife stuck in the middle of his back. There was blood soaking through his orange and white hoodie. I stood frozen as Gold walked up to the body and nudged it with his foot.

"Yeah… he really is dead," he confirmed.

"Don't mess with it too much," I warned him, "there's probably evidence on him, right?"

"Right, right."

"What happened?!" The other students began flooding into the hallway. There was a resounding cacophony of gasps and shrieks when they saw the corpse laying before them.

"No! Not Barry!" Wally shouted in surprise.

"Oh, it's too much to look at," Serena said quietly as she covered her mouth with her pale hand.

"Red, Gold! Tell us what happened!" Brendan demanded.

"We were on guard duty like we were supposed to be, but then Barry went to use the restroom. We heard him scream, but by the time we made it over here he was already dead," Gold informed him.

"I'm going to interrupt for just a moment!" a cheerful voice announced. Sure enough, Pikachu seemingly popped up out of nowhere.

"Hey, asshole! This is all your fault!" Blue shouted.

"Now, now. Let's all remember to keep a cool head. After all, if you attack me then you'll meet a fate much worse than your friend here! Nyahahahahaha!"

"I hate saying it, but he's right," Leaf said calmly as she stepped forward, "If we want to survive this, then we need to figure out who killed Barry. We'd best listen to Pikachu for now."

"He's probably the one who killed Barry in the first place!" May shouted.

"I cannot kill any of the participants in the game. That is a major no-no! And I will never break any of the rules of the game! Barry here was certainly killed by one of you, and I'll give you the official Pikachu guarantee on that!"

"Why should we trust you?!" Bianca asked, her hands shaking with anger.

"We can trust him," Silver said nonchalantly, "If he just wanted to kill everyone, he'd have done it by now. Clearly whoever is controlling him wants to witness a real killing game. Otherwise why would they go to all the trouble of setting this place up so meticulously?"

"Hey, don't talk to us like you're part of a team now! You're suspect number one!" Gold shouted at him.

"I don't intend to die here, so I'll work to find the killer just like the rest of you. And when the time comes, I'll pull off a murder that none of you can solve," the red-haired boy said darkly.

"ANYWAY," Pikachu interrupted, "I need to explain some things to you all, so shut your traps for a gosh-darned minute!"

Everyone glared at the creature, but complied.

"Now that a murder has occurred, it's time for you all to investigate. You'll have a limited amount of time to do so, and when I call for you, you must all meet in the gymnasium! There we will hold a class trial to determine who the killer is. Anyone who does not participate will be punished, so you'd all better show up when I call you! Now, please open your student handbooks."

We all did as he said, and we noticed that a new feature had become available.

"This is the 'Corpse Report' feature. It gives you losers a run-down on general information about the body. It will usually state the cause of death and time of death, unless that information gives away who the killer is."

I scanned over the info. Barry's cause of death was listed as "blood loss/ trauma to spinal cord."

His time of death was 12:37 a.m, which added up. There was also a section which listed general info about the body, like Barry's age, height, weight, and….penis… length?

"Why the hell is it telling me his dick size!?" Rosa shrieked.

"Nyahahahaha! That's just an added bonus from yours truly! When the victim is a male, you'll learn the size of their genitalia! When it's a female, you'll learn about her breasts!"

"You're such a nasty pervert!" May yelled.

"Barry was really packing though. 6 solid inches!" Tierno laughed.

"How can you laugh at a time like this?" Lucas asked in shock.

"Sorry, my bad!" Tierno apologized.

"That's all I have for now!" Pikachu announced, "Happy investigating!"

"Alright, let's all hop to it!" Lyra shouted, "Everyone pick a location and start looking for clues!"

"We need to post a guard over the body," Gold said, "No, actually we need two guards. Otherwise the killer could tamper with the scene of the crime."

"I'll watch over it," Lucas volunteered, "I wouldn't be much help with the investigation anyways."

"Me too," Rosa offered.

"Okay, so my question is if anyone is able and willing to examine the body thoroughly," Leaf said.

"You mean touch it and inspect it and stuff?" Wally asked nervously, "I don't think I could do something like that… besides, Barry was… a friend, right? It seems disrespectful to mess with his remains."

"Someone has to do it," I told him, "This is a life or death situation."

"Yes. It's important to verify exactly what injuries the victim has. Who has medical knowledge here?" Leaf asked.

"I have some knowledge," Blue informed her, "I am the ultimate scientist after all, but I'm not well versed in anatomy. My specialty is more chemistry and physics type stuff."

"I've worked with injured animals a lot as the Ultimate Zoologist, so I can help too," Brendan offered.

"We'll leave the body examination to them then. The rest of us should search the first floor for anything that could be evidence," Leaf decided.

"Hey, why are you bossing us around?" Dawn asked.

"Do you disagree with what I said? Remember, if we can't figure out who killed Barry, then we will all die."

"… Whatever. With that, the blue-haired girl left the scene. Serena went along with her, since they seemed to have formed a friendship.

"I'll check the boys bathroom for any evidence," Tierno volunteered, "If that's where he was supposed to be going, then maybe there's a clue hidden in there!"

Everyone else quickly split up to search whatever they thought might be useful.

"I'm going to let Blue and Brendan inspect the body for now. I'll come back to check on their progress later. There's somewhere else I'd like to check first anyway," Leaf said cryptically. With that, she walked in the direction of the dormitory.

"Guess I'll be investigating alone," I said to myself. Let's see… we know for a fact that Silver, Rosa, Serena, and Dawn had left their rooms before the murder occurred. Maybe I should go check the storage room since that's where the girls went. As I walked past Barry's dead body, I shuddered. He seemed like a nice enough guy. Why was it him who was targeted?

I promise to solve this mystery… and catch who did this to you! I silently vowed to him.

Inside the storage room, I found Dawn and Serena. They seemed to be messing with some boxes.

"What are you guys doing?" I asked them.

"We came in here earlier because… one of us needed a tampon," Serena explained sheepishly, "so while we were at it, we decided to gather up that sort of supplies to keep in our rooms so that we won't have to come here every time we need that stuff."

"We were gathering up the supplies when we heard the body discovery announcement," Dawn explained, "so we never got to finish."

"So all three of you were in here when Barry was killed?" I asked.

"Yep, that's right!" Dawn replied a little too enthusiastically.

"We all have an alibi," Serena agreed.

"Why were you in here so long? I mean, you guys were gone at least 20 minutes. How long does it take to gather some supplies?"

"Everything is boxed up tight," Dawn explained, "So it was taking us a long time to open everything up. We didn't have anything sharp to cut them open with, so it was slow work. You don't seriously think one of us killed him, do you?"

"That's not what I'm doing. I'm only asking to gather information. It can be information that eliminates you guys as suspects, which is just as helpful as gathering information that points toward a suspect. If you were all together, then you have air-tight alibis, so you have nothing to worry about."

"Well then, I guess it's okay," Dawn huffed.

"You've both been helpful. Thank you," I told them. There didn't seem to be much more to investigate in the storage room, so I decided to move on to the next area of interest. Now I could eliminate those three girls as suspects, as well as myself and Gold since we were together the whole time as well. That left nine students who could potentially be the killer.

I opted to go have a look at Barry's room next. Since he was the one who died, it seemed like his room shouldn't be overlooked. When I arrived, I was glad to find that his room was unlocked, but surprised to see that this was where Leaf had decided to investigate as well.

"Find anything in here?" I asked her.

"One thing strikes me as odd," she told me, "Remember how Barry said he had been given rope as his murder weapon?"

"Yeah, I remember him saying that."

"I can't find said rope anywhere. He also said he'd been given instructions on how to strangle someone, but I can't seem to find them either."

"Maybe he was carrying the rope on him? Or maybe he just threw them both away?"

"It's possible, but I don't think it's very likely. Even if he was opposed to the killing game, keeping the rope would be beneficial for self defense if nothing else."

"We'll have to see if he had the rope on him last night," Red decided.

"That's about all we can do," Leaf agreed.

I continued to look around the room. I didn't notice much else. Barry's room had all the same stuff that I had. Leaf and I also made sure to check his bathroom and we saw that it was in working condition. Why would Barry have gone to the restrooms in the hallway? It didn't make any sense.

Leaf and I both went back to the hallway where Barry's lifeless body lay. It was still really hard to stomach that he was dead, more or less to accept that one of us had killed him.

"Any progress?" Leaf asked Blue and Brenden.

"We've finished examining the body," Blue reported, "He definitely died from that knife to the back, but he has a couple of other wounds as well."

"Where?" I asked.

"See on his neck here?" Brenden asked as he pointed to what they were talking about, "He's got two shallow cuts on the front of his neck. It's like someone tried to slash his throat but they didn't do a very good job."

"I see," Leaf answered, "We have another question for you. Did you find any kind of weapon on Barry's person?"

"Nah," Blue answered, "that loser wasn't carrying anything for self-defense. Ill preparation on his part, huh?"

"Don't talk about the dead like that," Brendan chided him. He shot us an apologetic look.

"We did find something incredibly incriminating on his body though!" Blue said suddenly. He held out his hand to reveal a small tuft of red hair, "Only one person here has hair this color, and that's our number one suspect, Silver!"

"He is the most suspicious of everyone," I admitted, "where is he anyway?"

"I saw him head toward the dorms," Rosa offered.

"Great, thanks," Leaf said before walking away toward the dorms. I thought about going with her but I needed to ask Rosa a question.

"Hey, Rosa. You, Dawn, and Serena were in the storage room before the murder took place, right? Can you tell me if all three of you were there the entire time? I already asked Dawn and Serena about it but I wanted to make sure."

"Uh, yeah. We went to go get some tampons and stuff. We were there the whole time," she said nervously. What was she nervous about? Maybe girls just don't like talking about that stuff in front of guys.

"How did all of you know to go get supplies at the same time?" I asked.

"We were hanging out together in Dawn's room before we went. We figured it wouldn't be breaking the night-time rule as long as we were in the dorms. We were going to spend the night in the same room so that we could protect each other, you know?"

"Yeah, that checks out," Gold added, "They did all come out of the same room when they left. I saw them."

"I understand. Thanks for answering my question," I thanked her.

"No problem. We need to work together if we're going to survive this thing. I'll cooperate with anyone if it helps us succeed."

"I feel the same way." The two of us shared a smile and I took a moment to collect my thoughts. So far it seemed like Silver was suspect number one. However, I didn't know how certain we could be about his guilt. We needed more information. I assumed that Leaf had gone to speak with him, so I decided to leave that to her. There was one more place I needed to investigate anyway.

I headed down the hallway to the boys' restroom. If Barry really had gone there, then there was bound to be some evidence left behind.

Inside the restroom, Tierno was examining the area around the sinks.

"Find anything?" I asked him.

"Not yet. The area around the sinks seems to be spotless," he observed, "and everything else looks virtually untouched. That doesn't mean Barry didn't come in here though."

"I was hoping we'd find a major clue in here," I told him, unable to hide my disappointment.

I decided to look in the stalls anyway. These restrooms were interesting, and I'd wondered about it before when I'd used them a couple of times, but there were no urinals in the boys' restroom. Only stalls with toilets. I checked all five stalls carefully, but didn't see anything of interest. The toilets showed no sign of use and every stall was well stocked with toilet paper.

"How's the investigation going in here?" a voice asked.

"Hey, there's no girls allowed in the boys' restroom!" Tierno shouted. I came out of the stall I was investigating to see who it was. Leaf was standing there, observing the room carefully.

"This is a matter of life and death," she told Tierno, "I don't think rules like that are what's most important right now."

"Yeah, okay," he whined.

"We haven't found anything in here," I informed her, "Everything seems completely spotless and neatly organized."

"Don't you think that's odd?" Leaf asked.

"Maybe a little. But Barry might have just been a tidy person," I answered.

"Yeah! What, do you think us guys just pee on the floor every time we go?" Tierno asked indignantly. Leaf chose to ignore him.

"I think it's more than a little odd," she began to explain, "if Barry really did come in here, then this is where he probably ran into the killer. You'd think there would be some evidence of a fight or struggle."

"Maybe Barry didn't really go to the restroom at all!" Tierno suggested.

"That's definitely a possibility," I concurred.

"Are you sure you've checked everything in here?" Leaf asked.

"Everything I could think to," I said.

Without answering, Leaf walked over towards the stalls and began looking inside. I heard a sound like a metal door opening and closing.

"What are you doing?" I moved in front of the stall she was in and tried to peek over her shoulder.

"I'm checking somewhere boys probably wouldn't think to look."

I was confused for a moment, but then I realized what she was checking. She was carefully looking inside the metal boxes on the sides of the stalls. The ones used for… feminine products.

"I found something interesting," she informed us.

"Really? What is it?" Tierno asked.

"You probably won't want to look at it yourselves, but there's a used tampon in the box of this second stall."

"What the hell!?" Tierno shouted, "Why is something like that in here?"

"That's a good question," Leaf answered, deep in thought. "I think it would be a good idea if we checked out the girl's restroom too. I think there might be a clue in there that can explain this."

"Me and Red can't go in there!" Tierno protested.

"What did I say earlier?" Leaf asked with mild irritation.

"Okay, okay, I'll come with you guys."

The three of us went into the girls' restroom together. At first glance, it looked the same as the boys' restroom. Everything was spotless and neatly organized.

"Let's investigate," Leaf suggested. We split up the restroom between the three of us. We knew we were running out of time to investigate so we had to move quickly. Tierno and I were searching the stalls while Leaf checked the sinks and trash.

Everything seemed in order. I even checked the little boxes like Leaf had, though it did irk me a bit. I was pretty convinced that we weren't going to find anything, until I entered the last stall.

Is that… toilet paper? In the bottom of the toilet there was a wad of paper, but it looked a little different from toilet paper. I didn't want to do it, but I reached my hand in and pulled it out, letting as much water run off of it as possible.

"Did you find something?" Tierno asked. He must have heard me pull it out.

"I don't know. I found a piece of paper but I don't know if it's important or not." I wrapped the soaked paper in toilet paper and brought it out to where Leaf was inspecting the sinks. We carefully laid it out on the counter and did our best to unfold it.

"This is a note of some kind," I observed. The handwriting had bled from the paper getting wet, but it was still just barely readable.

Meet me in the girls' restroom.

"This is a huge clue!" Tierno gasped.

"It appears that Barry was asked to come here," Leaf concluded, "He never entered the boys' restroom, and instead came into the girls' restroom to meet with whoever wrote this note. Red, can you flip the note over, please?"

"Uh, sure," I answered, carefully doing as she said. I was shocked when I saw what was on the back of the paper.

"That's… that's a chart of where to stab people fatally with a knife!" Tierno exclaimed.

"Just as I thought. I haven't seen any paper in my dorm, or in the storage room. My own journalist's notepad excluded of course," Leaf said. "I figured the only thing this note could be written on was someone's weapon instructions."

"We know that everyone has different weapons, but we don't know who has what," I mused.

"We do know two people who have a knife," Leaf reminded me.

"Who?" Tierno asked.

"I have one," I admitted, "Wally has one too. But that doesn't mean either of us is the killer. We'll have to find out who all has what weapon."

"I have a rope," Tierno told us.

"That's what Barry had too."

"We won't be able to collect everyone's info before the trial, so we'll have to do it there," Leaf decided, "In the meantime, look at what I found in the trash." She held out her hand to reveal a paper towel with blood on it. "Someone used it to clean up blood. It's a small amount, but it looks fresh. This definitely has to do with Barry's murder."

"Whoever killed Barry tried to cover their tracks. We've found these clues but I can't pinpoint who might be the killer," I said nervously, "There's too many things that don't add up."

"We're all going to die!" Tierno cried.

"It's too early to panic," Leaf advised us calmly. She couldn't offer any more comforting words though. At that moment, another announcement was made.

"I'm getting bored watching you all investigate like a bunch of novices," Pikachu's voice yawned, "Everyone report to the gym immediately. We will be beginning our class trial. Participation is mandatory, and anyone who does not attend will be punished! Now move those legs!"

"It's time," I said. The others nodded and we headed toward the gym. Everyone gathered together in the large room, looking rather apprehensive. Some were glaring suspiciously at Silver, who paid no attention to any of them.

I, myself, was sweating pretty hard. I barely knew these people. Even the ones I had gotten to know a little bit were still strangers. How were the fifteen of us supposed to work together to solve something like this? Real life crime scene detectives trained for years to do this sort of thing, yet here we were. Us teenagers were expected to solve a murder with no training or experience.

"Don't worry," a voice next to me spoke.

I turned and saw Leaf looking at me. I could see in her eyes that she had no fear. She seemed… confident. A small part of me suspected that she somehow knew more about this case than I did. Seeing her calmness made me feel at ease. We could do this. We had to do this. It was literally a ride or die situation.

"Okay, you puny little detectives! It is now time for us to begin our class trial! Everyone please step into the center court of the gym!" Pikachu demanded.

We did as the little creature said, all crowding onto the center court. Before we knew it, the middle part of the gym floor began vibrating. There were some mechanical noises and then we all began to descend on the platform.

"What the hell is happening!?" Blue shouted.

"I'm going to fall!" Lyra screamed as she desperately grabbed on to Silver's shoulders. He promptly shoved her off and she landed on her butt.

"Just sit down if you can't keep your balance," he said bluntly.

"Jerk," she muttered, glaring at him. I could tell that she was convinced he was Barry's murderer.

Everyone stayed silent after that as we were lowered into the ground on the makeshift elevator. Eventually we reached the bottom of the pit, and what we saw there was astounding. Astoundingly weird and inexplicable.

"It's… a courtroom." Lucas said softly.

"Well, duh!" Pikachu jeered as he popped up on top of the judge's stand, "We can't hold a proper trial without a proper courtroom! Well, maybe this room isn't totally proper. You'll notice the non-traditional layout, yes?"

We all looked and saw that there were 16 podiums arranged in a circle. Each podium had one of our names written on the front. Barry's podium had a standee with a picture of his face on it. There was a red X drawn over it. I supposed it was to signify that he was dead, but was it really necessary to represent him in that way?

"Everyone find your places!" Monokuma told us, we need to get on with this show already or I'm going to get bored! This is soooooo exciting!"

We all anxiously found our spots and assumed our positions in the circle. We awkwardly exchanged nervous glances with each other. This was really happening. How on earth, in our safe and modern society, had something like this come to take place? It was all a big cloud of uncertainty hanging over us.

One thing was certain though. One of us had killed Barry, and we needed to figure out who did it. If we didn't, we would all be killed. No matter what… we needed to see this thing through. We had to outsmart the killer, or we would never be able to make it out of this school alive.

It was finally time… for the first trial of this despicable killing game to begin.

Hey all. Updates will be slow, but the first case is finally underway. It will only take one chapter to do the whole trial, so we will have the first case concluded next chapter.

Let me know what you guys are thinking so far. I don't always respond to reviews, but I do read them and take what is said into consideration. There will be a lot more character development as the story progresses, so please bear with me.

Also, feel free to share who you think Barry's killer is!

Bye for now :)