Sayaka Maizono shuddered as she awoke. What…? What was going on? This didn't seem right…
She was slumped over in a classroom, one of the ones in Hope's Peak. She recognized it, right down to the metal plates bolted over the windows.
Wait - !
That's why everything felt so wrong! She hadn't fallen asleep, then awakened here! She'd died.
And yet, she somehow didn't appear to be dead? She certainly had no trouble getting out of her seat and walking over to the metal-plated windows. A simple touch confirmed that they were quite real. The cold metal made her fingers tingle.
Glancing around to make sure she was truly alone, Sayaka hooked her fingers under the hem of her shirt and lifted it up. How odd. Sayaka clearly remembered being stabbed to death, and yet she appeared to not be dead, and there wasn't any sign of her fatal injury, either…
She smoothed her shirt back down and plastered on her photobook smile once more. Perhaps there was something she was missing about this situation? It was truly odd, but no-one got famous without being at least a little adaptable. Whatever was going on, she'd make it work. Somehow.
Another glance around the room drew her eyes towards the clock. Huh? 7:45? Wasn't that about when she had woken up before meeting her classmates three days ago?
Wait.
Was that it?
Was that what had happened?
It didn't sound possible, but if Sayaka was asked, she would say the same thing about being locked in a school and forced to murder in order to leave. So, really, it seemed like it was certainly a possibility, and one that she couldn't discount.
With that possibility in mind, Sayaka stepped out of the classroom, making a beeline for the main hall. Sure enough, there were a few of her classmates clustered in there, looking quite confused. In this moment, she swore she could almost feel their confusion prickling at the back of her mind.
It was at times like these that she wondered if she really was physic.
So, she had gone back in time. Not very far, just back to when she had first been sealed in the school, but now she knew what she had to do.
She wasn't going to let Leon get the upper hand this time. She had to get out of here, and Leon was the one she was willing to sacrifice to do it. Her bandmates… they needed her!
For the next twenty minutes, Sayaka mingled with her classmates, talking much but saying little. She wondered about her classmates in a way that she hadn't the first time around. Now, before the game was announced, she had a chance to see them slightly less guarded.
But, once the oddity of the situation was factored in, they were still fairly guarded. Sayaka came away from almost every introduction with more questions than answers.
The exception was Hifumi's introduction, which plainly informed her that she didn't want to interact with this person anymore than she absolutely had too.
Finally, Makoto stumbled through the door, looking just as lost as everyone else. He really was a little bit of an odd duck, wasn't he? So very soft. So very genuine.
She'd wanted to be his friend for a few years now. He was so genuine, somehow she could tell, even from across a crowded hallway, that he would never try to take advantage of her or her fame. People that genuine were hard to come by, so she'd have to be a fool to let Makoto slip away.
She'd tried to frame him for murder the night before, and she'd have to do it again three days from now.
It couldn't be helped, really. She had to get out of here. While Makoto was certainly a good friend, she couldn't put him above her band. She had to have priorities.
When Makoto wandered over to her to introduce himself, she cut in before he could get out a word, asking if he'd gone to Blackroot Junior High, and making certain they established that connection quickly.
When the conversation ended, they were both left smiling, but Sayaka's smile was bittersweet. If circumstances were different, she'd have just made one of the best friends she could ever have. But as things were...
The next three days passed quickly, the same as they had before. Sayaka still accompanied Makoto to the display case and urged him to take the replica sword - he'd need to be able to defend himself after she graduated, after all.
Wait, no - it wasn't exactly like before. Before, Makoto had spent more time with Celeste, hadn't he? After he'd helped Sayaka calm down, he'd hung out with Celeste, or at least Sayaka had thought…
But this time around, after helping her calm down, Makoto had gone next door and dragged Toko out of her room to spend time together. And then later on, Sayaka had seen him interacting with Hiro, too…
It… probably didn't mean anything. Right? Nothing was going to change because of that… right?
Right, right, when it was time for breakfast on the fourth day, Monokuma interrupted again and began his talk about motives. Same as before, Mondo delegated the task of investigating whatever Monokuma was talking about to Makoto. Same as before, Sayaka agreed to accompany Makoto.
And, same as before, they found the videos in the AV room.
Yes, who Makoto hung out with wasn't impacting anything. She didn't need to worry about it.
When they all watched their videos, Sayaka felt more than heard herself cry out when she saw her bandmates fall. Even the second time around, it was so awful to watch - ! She couldn't imagine the horrors that might have been inflicted on her bandmates to leave them in such a state. Who could have committed such a travesty?
When all was said and done, what mattered was that she didn't exactly need to fake her reaction, which was similar enough to the one she had last time. Again, Makoto promised to get her out of the school.
Good. The stage was set for her plan to come to fruition tonight.
Once again, she faked panic, and once again, Makoto agreed to switch rooms with her. Once again, she went to the kitchen to fetch a knife, telling Hina and Sakura she only wanted a glass of water. Once again, she wrote Leon a letter saying she wanted to talk and slipped it under his door. Once again, she switched hers and Makoto's nameplates.
She only had to make one change to Makoto's room to ensure her success this time. Before, Leon had used Makoto's replica sword to defend himself, so all she had to do was move it.
The desk was far enough away from the short little hallway/entryway. Leon wouldn't be able to get to it there.
Her plan went off without a hitch. Leon breathed his last on Makoto's floor, and Sayaka hurried to clean herself up as much as she could. It didn't matter that much anyway - so long as the blame landed on Makoto, and she got to walk out of the school.
She rather hoped Makoto might follow her out, but she figured that such a genuine person as he was unlikely to commit murder. It was too bad, really. She would have liked to really be his friend.
Breakfast the next morning was… interesting. She wondered how it had gone last time, after she had died, but there was no way for her to know, anyway. People wondered where Leon was, of course, but Byakuya (the last one to arrive) hadn't seen him, and no-one got a response when they rang his doorbell.
Well, they wouldn't, but they didn't know that.
No-one wanted to say that Leon had been killed, but the tension in the dining hall was… well, it was rather high. Still, no-one made a move to really go looking for him - they assumed (or perhaps hoped) that he was merely sleeping in.
After breakfast, she and Makoto had to trade room keys back. Sayaka tried to make the exchange serendipitously, but they were still in the dining hall. Hopefully, no-one would notice or think anything of it.
It was less than five minutes later that Makoto let out a horrific scream. When the rest of the class rushed to him, he was unconscious. He had fainted, presumably from the shock of finding a dead body in the middle of his bedroom floor.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Sayaka wondered if Makoto had fainted with shock when he found her body, too.
DING DONG BING BONG.
After the class peered through the door to see Leon's body, impaled and bloody, sprawled out over Makoto's floor, a sickeningly normal-sounding chime rang out over the school's broadcast system.
"A body has been discovered!"
What…? What was this?
"After a certain amount of time, which you may use however you like,"
What was this sick feeling of dread pooling in her stomach? Surely this was the end, right? Leon was dead, their classmates would think it was Makoto, and she would get to leave, right? Right?
"The class trial will begin!"
Class… trial?
After that horrifying announcement finished, Monokuma started a different announcement, this one advising that they make their way to the gym in order to receive further instructions.
Time seemed to pass in a blur, for the next little while. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered that Sukura carried an unconscious Makoto to the gym, where they were told they had to wait until Makoto woke up.
The dread in the pit of her stomach built up into a churning, roiling sea of fear, becoming far too much for the slight-figured pop star to handle. She sat down on the bleachers next to Makoto.
She hoped he would forgive her when he realized what she'd done.
When Makoto did wake up, he was extremely upset. He kept demanding that he be allowed to go check, to go make sure it wasn't a trick, because there was no way Leon could really be dead!
Sayaka was fairly certain that Makoto and Leon had barely talked since introducing themselves four - or was it five? - days prior.
The level of concern that Makoto had for someone he barely knew - ! He was truly a good person, wasn't he? She'd never met someone so good before.
Guilt clawed at Sayaka's stomach. It would all be okay, in the end. She'd make it out, and while Makoto would still be here, at least he'd still be alive. She hadn't killed him.
Finally, Monokuma showed up, and Byakuya asked the question that they'd all been thinking. And Monokuma's answer… it was so wrong. So, so wrong.
They didn't have to just not be blamed. They had to get away with it through a whole trial, and if they didn't, they'd be punished for their crime. With the death penalty.
And if they did get away with it, the others wouldn't remain living in the school.
They'd all be killed.
Oh, god. They'd all be killed.
She hadn't realized she'd be sacrificing everyone. She'd thought she was just sacrificing Leon. This was… horrific. Oh, god. What had she done?
What had she done?
What had she done to them all?
What had she done to Makoto?
She felt numb. Somewhere, somehow, she felt and heard the reactions of her fellow classmates, but they didn't really register. She'd doomed them all. Even Makoto.
But…
But she had to endure. She couldn't take back what she'd already done, she could only move forward. And now, it was them or her. She had to do this, for her bandmates. She had to make sure they were okay.
She wasn't going to confess, it would literally be the death of her. But if they figured her out, then she wouldn't do them the disservice of denying it for too long. That promise to herself gave her the strength to tune back into the discussion going on among her classmates - just in time for Junko to declare that she wasn't going to participate and attack Monokuma.
Things went from bad to worse in a matter of seconds.
"To me, Spear of Gungnir!"
Thunk splat, thunk splat.
"Wh-what? This… wasn't supposed to-"
Junko's lifeless body fell to the floor in a heap.
Sayaka stared at the new corpse in stunned disbelief. What the-!
The class all recoiled at once, and Monokuma told them to let Junko's death serve as a warning against disobeying the rules before popping out of the room.
The class began to disperse, heading off to begin their investigation. But before they could leave, Celeste made a point of pointing out where Leon's body had been found.
Makoto's kneejerk denial, brushed aside by their classmates who turned to leave, instigated a new swell of guilt inside of Sayaka.
But that denial was followed with eyes that widened in realization, and then pinned her with a look that brimmed with betrayal. Tears looked nearly ready to escape his eyes.
"Sayaka… how- How could you?"
She didn't have an answer. She just turned away and walked out of the gym. She didn't know how to explain the choice she'd made to him.
She went to her room. Where else would she go? Even if she knew how to investigate, why would she investigate a crime she committed? And besides… if there was to be a trial, she'd need to be far more composed than she was right now.
She ended up pacing back and forth in her room, vocalizing nonsense as she attempted to soothe her frayed nerves.
After some time had passed, there was a knock on her door. She opened it, fully expecting Makoto to be on the other side, and dreading it.
But it wasn't Makoto.
"May I come in?" Kyoko asked, but considering that she was already striding inside, it was clear that the question was more of a courtesy than anything.
"I… don't see why you can't?" Sayaka said after a stunned moment. She didn't know much about Kyoko, but it seemed like she was here on a mission.
She should probably be worried, but she truly was too tired, physically and emotionally, to muster up something as potentially tiring as worry at the moment.
She was exhausted. Committing murder required you to stay up so very late.
You had to stay up late to get the victim alone. Then you had to stay up even later in order to clean up after the crime! Sayaka had only gotten about three hours of sleep last night, but she couldn't let that show.
It'd be awfully suspicious, after all.
Sayaka watched Kyoko do… something, but she didn't really feel like she understood it, and she was too exhasuted to ask. Instead, she just sat on her bed and watched without seeing.
It wasn't too long before Kyoko left again, giving only a simple "Goodbye," as she strode away.
Soon after, someone else knocked on her door. This time, it really was Makoto.
"I want… I want to know how you could - how you could do this," Makoto's voice shook.
For a long minute, they just stared at each other, neither one doing or saying anything. Finally, Sayaka spoke.
"I'm sorry."
And then she closed the door.
She wasn't entirely sure how much time passed between that and when Monokuma announced the beginning of the trial, but she spent that time pacing, trying to gather herself together. She didn't feel ready, but she didn't think she'd ever feel ready for this.
The trial was… odd. Really odd.
"Let's start with a discussion of the murder weapon!" Monokuma chirped, far too cheerful for this occasion.
"Leon was stabbed in the chest, right?" Taka began the conversation. "There was still a knife sticking out of his chest, so that must be the murder weapon!"
"So the killer just took some random knife, and stabbed the guy?" Mondo asked.
"No, that's wrong!" Makoto burst into the conversation. "That wasn't just any knife. It was a kitchen knife. There's one missing from the set in the kitchen."
"Huh? A kitchen knife?" Mondo looked confused for a minute. "Well, yeah, that makes sense. If you look at the part that's sticking out, it does look like one."
"Does it really matter where the knife came from?" Hiro asked. "I mean, we all know Makoto did it, right?"
"That's true…" Hifumi agreed. "The body of Mr. Kuwata was found in Mr. Naegi's room!"
"In other words, you're saying that Makoto is the only suspect that makes sense," Byakuya sounded almost bored.
"No, that's wrong!" Makoto broke in again. "Me and Sayaka switched rooms last night. She… told me she was scared, but now I wonder if that was really why she wanted to…"
"Really? Trying to shift blame to Sayaka? I thought the two of you were friends," Celeste sounded dismissive and aloof as she attempted to lampoon Makoto's argument.
"Makoto," Sayaka steeled herself to put on a performance that could very well be her last, "Y-yesterday you said, you'd always be on my side! Wh-why?"
"Because everyone here is my friend, Sayaka!" Makoto began.
"I'm not," Byakuya interjected.
"Almost everyone here is my friend!" Makoto amended. "And I can't put you above all of them, no matter what you say!"
"You said you'd always be on my side!" Sayaka cried, careful not to say anything that was strictly untrue. The implication of her line was false, but that wasn't the point.
"A-actually…" Surprisingly, it was Toko who spoke up. "I- I saw them exchange something, a-at breakfast th-this morning? I d-don't know if it was their r-room keys, b-but… I-it's p-possible M-Makoto's not lying…"
Sayaka had to be careful not to let her surprise show. Someone had seen that? Toko had seen that? She'd thought she'd been so careful… Damnit! She'd gotten careless!
"Indeed," Kyoko nodded. "There is plenty of evidence to show that Makoto is telling the truth about switching rooms. Aside from Toko's testimony, there are two more clues that clearly show that Makoto and Sayaka spent last night in each-other's rooms."
"Two more clues? How interesting," Celeste said thoughtfully.
"One of them's that thing you told me about, isn't it?" Makoto asked, his anger still plainly written over his face. "The thing about the hair?"
"Exactly," Kyoko nodded.
"Hair? What does hair have to do with anything?" Hina asked, perplexed.
"Kyoko looked at my room very closely, and found that Sayaka did in fact leave some of her hair in my room," Makoto began to explain.
"Okay? And? You two are close friends, right? It makes sense that a little of her hair was in your room!"
"It wasn't just a little hair, and it wasn't just on the floor. There was hair all over my room," Makoto shook his head, like he didn't want to believe what he was saying.
"That's not all, either," Kyoko nodded decisively. "I went by Sayaka's room earlier - you remember that, don't you Sayaka?"
Trapped, Sayaka responded truthfully, "Yes, you came to my room while I was trying to calm my nerves before the trial."
"And, curious after finding so much of Sayaka's hair in Makoto's room, I decided to look for Makoto's hair in your room."
"Is that what you were doing?"
"You seemed pretty out of it, but regardless, I was somewhat surprised to see that there was an equivalent amount of Makoto's hair in your room to the amount of your hair that was in his. Not because I disbelieved his testimony, but because at that point, suspicions were clearly falling on Makoto, and yet you didn't seem to make the effort to clean your room of evidence that casts a bad light on you."
"Well, why would I do that?" Sayaka tried to deflect, even though she was internally yelling at herself. Had she been so tired that she'd forgotten something so simple? "I haven't done anything."
"Either that, or you're a complete amature," Byakuya scoffed. "Not sure which one is more likely, because they both sound accurate at the moment."
Sayaka almost yelled at him to try remembering things like that when you hadn't slept in twenty hours or more, but stopped herself. That would practically be an admission of guilt! Come on Sayaka, get it together!
"Ah, Kyoko," Celeste cut in, "You said there were two more pieces of evidence that suggested that Makoto and Sayaka had indeed switched rooms. What is the second piece?"
"I discovered this on a notepad in Makoto's room," Kyoko pulled out a sheet of notebook paper, mostly shaded in, but with plain white letters standing out in sharp contrast.
Sayaka tensed up, her blood running cold.
"Whoa, what is that?" Hiro asked.
"When you write on a sheet of paper, it can leave an imprint on the sheet behind it. Lightly shade the next page in and…"
"Oh yeah!" Hina suddenly chirped in excitement. "I've totally seen people do that in detective shows. When I saw that, I was like 'Whoa. I gotta remember to tear the paper out before I use it from now on!'"
"While I'm not sure where the note itself went, the imprint clearly reads: 'I have something I want to talk to you about alone. Come to my room in five minutes. Make sure you check the nameplates so that you get the right room, okay? - Sayaka Maizono'." Kyoko rattled off the contents of the note like she was signing Sayaka's death warrant.
"While the location of the note is suspect, wouldn't the person who had received the note have gone to Sayaka's actual room if they looked at the note?" Sakura spoke.
"Th-that's right!" Sayaka giggled. It didn't sound convincing, even to her ears. "I just wrote a note in Makoto's room a couple of days ago, that's all!"
"No, that's wrong!" Makoto yelled again. "Even if I remembered you doing something like that - which I don't - there's evidence that our nameplates were switched at some point."
"What kind of evidence? Surely they weren't left switched. That would be idiotic," Byakuya snarked.
"No, they weren't left switched," Makoto sounded more calm now, but his words still carried more force than Sayaka would have thought possible for him. "But the doors were both scuffed up from the nameplates removed and replaced."
"I-" Sayaka knew she was in hot water at this point, but she didn't know what to say anymore. "I-"
She'd failed again. Would she get to try a third time? Did she want to try a third time, knowing that the stakes were higher than she had thought?
"What about the knife, though? If Sayaka did it, where'd she get the knife?" Hiro asked.
"That would be an issue regardless of who killed Leon," Celeste replied. "But at this point, do we even need to discuss this?"
"We should always strive to explain as much as can," Kyoko nodded. "And besides, this shouldn't take too long."
"Actually, Hina, didn't you say that the knife went missing while you were in the dining hall?" Makoto spoke up.
"Actually, yeah," Hina nodded. "Sakura and I were having tea in the dining hall, and when we got there, the knife was still in the kitchen, but when we went to wash our cups, the knife was gone!"
"Which means that you must have seen who took it," Byakuya's eyes narrowed, seemingly irritated that Hina hadn't brought this up before.
"The only one who came in there while we were there was… Sayaka," Hina turned to Sayaka with an owlish expression.
"Well then," Celeste's words were as sharp as her ever-perfect poise, "I suppose that we have our killer then."
Sayaka let out a sob. "Makoto… you said- you said you'd make sure I got out of here!"
"Not like this!" Makoto yelled back at her, "Never like this. Not for anyone."
"As delightful as this moment is," Monokuma broke in, "It's time to vote! Pull the lever to cast your vote!"
It came as no surprise that Sayaka was the one everyone voted for.
There was a blur of activity as people asked for explanations and Makoto cried tears that were half sadness and half anger, but Sayaka remained silent as tears ran down her face.
When everyone stopped speaking over each-other, she finally spoke.
"I had to try… my bandmates, my dream, my family… I had to see if they were okay… But it looks like I failed. And… for what it's worth, I didn't realize the stakes for success were quite so high."
Her classmates looked on as she was led away to her death by Monokuma. She didn't dare to look at any of them. Not even Makoto.
Sayaka was led up onto a stage, with a long seam down the middle and what looked like a beartrap around the edge. Seeing her looking, Monokuma apparently decided to explain… something. The explanation was practically nonsensical anyway.
"Oh yeah, I was originally going to use the beartrap, but I was worried that the splatter from that might be too much for some members of the audience, so I changed it."
"Huh?"
"Don't worry about it."
Sayaka found herself in the middle of the stage, singing for her life. There was a meter off to her left that was filling as she sang. When it was nearly full, Monokuma lept on stage and smashed it.
Only a moment later, the seam in the stage split, revealing a huge trapdoor that led to a pit filled with uneven spikes.
With nothing below her, Sayaka found herself tumbling down into the newly uncovered pit. She felt the spikes impaling her body all over -
And everything went black.