Q: Tell me about your parents.
UV: I don't have parents. They're his parents.
Q: Fine. Tell me about them.
UV: Idiots. They told him he could be anything. So he got it into his head he would be a painter. It was all he wanted, and every day, people would tell him how shitty his paintings were. And he acted like it didn't bother him. Just trusting someday someone would 'get it.' No anger, just... smiling.
Q: Were you his anger? Is that where you came from?
UV: I'm his reality. If you suck at everything, then you're shit. That's the rules.
Q: You blame his parents for all of it?
UV: They shouldn't have had a kid if they weren't able to deal with reality.
Q: Your pieces started out completely mysterious, but recently you've been leaving clues as to your identity. That's how the university found you, in fact.
UV: [laughs] Yep.
Q: Why did you start doing this? Why did you want to be found, when the mysteriousness of your work is what drew so much attention in the first place?
UV: Had to be exposed, eventually. If he's shit, then so am I.

GENERAL EDUCATION BUILDING: AUDITORIUM

I don't really remember the next few minutes; it was just a jumble of horrified faces, shrieking voices, and dizziness. I was not sure exactly how much time had passed by the time I got some degree of sense of my own body, sitting against the wall, shivering, eyes burning.

Person-shaped images darted here and there in the background, but one face suddenly came into focus, just near my own. It was Giuseppe.

"Saya," he was saying. "Are you with me?"

I opened my mouth but could not speak. A sob came out instead.

"I know," he said. "I know. But I need you with me. Okay? I need you to get it together."

"Why?" I was able to rasp.

"Because you can do what we need to do." He glanced to the side. "And listen. You are one of the very few people here I trust."

My head lolled to the side. There was a headless body over there in one of the auditorium seats, stiffly draped across its desk. I felt my breathing speed up.

Bepi turned my head so I was looking at him. "No. Get with me. Talk to me. Okay? Talk to me about chess. What's it take to be good at chess?"

"I... what? I..."

"Just answer the question without thinking. No pauses. What's it take to be good at chess?"

"Um... practice." I surprised myself by having an answer just come out of me. "So much of it is just memorization. You learn the patterns from experience. It's heuristics."

"That's it? That's all it takes to be good at chess?"

"Yeah." My vision began to focus more; colors got sharper. "That's all it takes to be good. But to be great at chess, you also just need to be a genius."

He smiled wanly. "Monokuma called everyone here and told us we need to investigate this. Okay? We need you to investigate this. Our lives are on the line. We need to figure out who did this. Do you understand?"

I paused as the world very briefly flickered, then I nodded. "Yes."

"Okay." He nodded too. "Do me a favor. Close your eyes and take a deep breath. And then, when you open your eyes, you'll be ready. You can do that."

I closed my eyes and tried to quiet my emotions and unclench my muscles. I didn't think I could do it, but very suddenly, like a switch being flicked, I was there. Bepi was right; I'd learned this in tournaments, and I could use it now.

I opened my eyes and stood up. My feelings were still there, and they were still screaming, but I could ignore them.

Earl was trying to keep order, barking commands that were being largely ignored. All of my classmates were here, and it was chaos. I walked to him, Bepi following behind me.

Earl looked relieved when he saw me. He was keeping his posture straight and even, but there was sweat on his forehead and fear in his eyes I'd not seen before. "Wilde. I'm glad you're back with us." He threw his hands in the air helplessly. "We need to act and keep order, but this is madness."

"People need jobs to do," I said. "Some people are too emotional to be any help right now. Someone needs to take care of them."

"And we need to preserve the crime scene," Bepi added. "It'd be easy for the culprit to alter evidence with all this chaos."

Earl nodded, some of the confidence coming back into his face. "Diaz!" he barked, calling Rodrigo over. The paladin came, looking shaken but still rational. "Mountebank, Voss, and Laettner are hysterical. Please take them outside and care for them until they are calm."

Rodrigo nodded. He gathered Juliet, Emily, and JP and took them out the main doors. I noticed Lucina insisted on going with them, holding Emily's hand as they left.

The room was much quieter; Emily had been hysterically sobbing. Ashley came up to us, shivering very slightly but otherwise looking the same as always. "No one should be alone!" she announced, placing herself next to Earl. "It minimizes the risk of evidence contamination!"

Earl nodded. "Suarez!" Therion looked up at him blankly. "You stay with Coelho and guard this crime scene! I will lead one team of investigators and Wilde will lead another!"

Ashley frowned. "I don't think..."

"It is an excellent plan!" Earl bellowed, thrusting a fist into the air. "Let us form teams and disperse!"

"Wait!" I called. I stepped forward, glaring at Nicole and Barrett, both of whom looked relatively unaffected by the gore. "You weren't at breakfast this morning. Where were you?"

Nicole scratched her head. "Oh yeah! I knew I forgot about something. I was heading to breakfast, but on the way, I ran into this dude." She pointed at Barrett. "We hung out in my room until Monokuma told us to come here. He..."

"Don't!" Barrett snapped.

"What?" Nicole snapped back. "It was super helpful. He modelled for me."

Not even my present state of emotional control could stop me from being surprised by this. "What?"

"Fuck no!" Barrett yelled. "I was... blowing shit up!"

"You were trying on pants I'd designed and looking awesome," Nicole corrected.

"I was blowing up... orphans!" Barrett growled. "Because I'm hardcore. But if I was trying on pants, then fuck yes, they looked awesome on me." He flexed slightly.

"But you were together the whole time?" I asked, receiving nods from both of them as a response. "When was the last time you saw Morgan?"

Nicole played awkwardly with the spool of thread attached to her belt. "Dinner last night, I guess?" Barrett just shrugged.

FACT 1: Nicole and Barrett's testimony
Nicole and Barrett say they spent the whole morning together. They claim to not have seen Morgan since last night.

I nodded. "Before we disperse, let me put that question to the whole room. Did anyone see Morgan after the sun went down but before class this morning? Therion, Rocky... did he let you into his room to vacuum or change the sheets?"

I glanced around, almost everyone either shaking their heads to murmuring a no. The lone exception was Katy, who shakingly put her hand in the air. "Um. I saw him this morning."

"You did? When?"

"Just before breakfast." Katy hugged herself. "I was leaving my room, and he just ran right past me. It was really weird, so I followed him, just in time to see the door to his room slam. I knocked, but he didn't respond, so I just left." She shivered. "I probably could have stopped this."

"I think only the killer could have stopped this," I replied.

"How did he look?" Therion asked. "Sick or frightened?"

Katy shrugged. "I couldn't tell; he had that stupid hoodie on. I didn't really see his face."

FACT 2: Katy's testimony
Katy says she saw Morgan before breakfast. He ran past her in the upstairs hallway and into his room but wouldn't respond when she knocked. Everyone else we asked says they haven't seen him since dinner and haven't been in his room.

"That's strange," Bepi said, frowning. "We should ask the others when we get a chance."

I nodded. "We need to stop beating around the bush and investigate," I said. "Bepi, Katy, can you help me?"

Katy looked surprised, but they both came forward. We shared a look, mostly to delay things for just another moment. Then, taking deep breaths, we began.

"Just to make sure we're all on the same page," Bepi said. "There's three exits to the auditorium. There's the main exit, the side exit, which leads down to the tunnel elevator, and that door in the back just behind Morgan's body goes to a little A/V room."

"Right," Katy confirmed. "We all went out the main door after class to be with Emily, and we hung out there for about… I don't know, five minutes maybe, at most. So whoever killed him must have left through the side doors and gone down into the tunnel." She shuddered. "That's so terrifying, that just on the other side of a door, someone was doing…" she glanced at the headless body, "…that."

"The bear sent us an email about things," Bepi explained. "You were kinda out of it when it happened, understandably."

I pulled out my tablet and noticed there was a new email, with the subject line, BODY DISCOVERY ANNOUNCEMENT

I poked it and read the message: The victims are Morgan Lee and The Ultimate Vandal. The body was discovered at 11:58 a.m. The body's head and right index finger have been severed. There were no other cuts on the body. The body contained no traces of poison or venom.

I blinked. This information was not particularly useful, but there was one surprising element. I walked to the body in the back row of the classroom. It sat there, hunched over, the hood obscuring the missing head.

Taking a deep breath, I sat the body up in the chair, struggling slightly to bend it. I lowered the hood, exposing the... neck hole. I was taking all of this very well.

I did my best to examine the body, but I wasn't sure what to look for. I noticed Bepi was examining the head, which had rolled all the way down to the front of the room, but Katy had followed me and was standing awkwardly, trying to avoid looking closely at the body.

"The report is right," I mused. "His finger is missing."

FACT 3: Missing finger
Morgan's right index finger was missing from his body when it was found.

"Guck," Katy replied. "Um. Can you tell anything else?"

I frowned. "There's... surprisingly little blood." I rubbed my fingers across the cloth of the hoodie. "It's on the neck and hood of the sweatshirt, and a little dripped on the desk, but it's not all over the place."

FACT 4: Bloodstains on body
There was not much blood on the body. The neck and hood of the Morgan's sweatshirt were bloody, and some was on the desk the body was found on, but it hadn't gotten anywhere else.

"I'm happy that I don't really have the concept of 'surprisingly little blood," Katy replied. "But what does it mean that he wasn't covered in it?"

"I don't want to make any conclusions now," I said. "Let's just try to objectively collect evidence and not draw conclusions until we have everything."

Bepi returned from examining the head. "I couldn't tell much," he reported. "Just that whoever decapitated him didn't have a very easy time of it."

"Oh god, how could you even tell that?" Katy asked.

"It wasn't a smooth cut," Bepi answered. "Several chops; it looked like the first few were hesitant and shallow. And look at this." He indicated the neck on the body, which had odd, discolored marks next to the cuts. "I don't think these marks came from a blade."

FACT 5: Morgan's decapitation
The wounds on Morgan's neck suggest it took several slices to cut the head off. There were also discolored marks that looked unrelated to the decapitation.

"Hm," I said, noticing something else. "Look at the bloodstains on his neck. See that?" I indicated the area I meant. There was a very subtle pattern of the bloodstains; a very fine matte. "It's like someone dabbed a sponge on it, or something."

FACT 4: Bloodstains on body (REVISED)
There was not much blood on the body. The neck and hood of the Morgan's sweatshirt were bloody, and some was on the desk the body was found on, but it hadn't gotten anywhere else. Some of the blood had an odd pattern to it, like it had been dabbed with a sponge or rag.

I frowned. "Okay." I noticed the door in the back of the room. "You said that led to a projector room?" Bepi nodded. "I want to see if anything's there."

I noticed they were fully acting like my sidekicks or assistants or something. I felt a weird burst of power. We headed to the door and went inside.

GENERAL EDUCATION BUILDING: PROJECTOR ROOM

"Welp," Bepi said.

"Yup," I replied.

There was a bloody machete lying right there on the floor of the projector room. I knelt down and examined it more closely. "Is this the one you showed me and Juliet in the store?"

"I think so," Bepi replied grimly.

"The blood is really dark," Katy observed, still standing back a foot or so. "Is that weird?"

Bepi shook his head. "Blood gets darker and stickier as it dries."

"There still isn't very much of it," I said. "Not even on the machete itself. No big pools of blood or anything anywhere."

FACT 6: Bloody machete
A bloody machete was in the projector room near where Morgan's body was found. Most of the blood on the blade had dried, and there was not blood anywhere else in the room.

Bepi squatted down over the machete. "Look at this," he said, beckoning us over. He gently pressed his finger against the side of the blade. "I'm pretty sure this is the same one, but that was brand new. But look at this. The blade's damaged."

I felt it with my finger; part of the machete blade was indeed bent, as if it had been struck against something hard at least once.

FACT 6: Bloody machete (REVISED)
A bloody machete was in the projector room near where Morgan's body was found. Most of the blood on the blade had dried, and there was not blood anywhere else in the room. The blade of the machete was damaged, as if it had been struck against something hard.

I stood up. "Where do you think we should check next?"

"We should check the other way out, right?" Katy spoke up. "Most of us went out the front doors after class, so if there was someone else, they had to have left through the tunnel."

I nodded. "Maybe. Worth checking, at least." We left the projector room and headed downstairs.

GENERAL EDUCATION ROOM: FIRST FLOOR HALLWAY

As we descended the stairs to the hallway, I noticed something very different than when I had been here before. There was a can of paint open and on its side. A large puddle of white paint covered the middle of the hallway. There were footprints leading from the puddle, down the hallway, past the doors to the storage closets and laundry room, straight to the elevator at the end.

"Whoa," Katy muttered. "Weird."

We stepped around the puddle of white paint, examining the footprints. "They're... very small," Bepi observed.

He was right. The footprints cleanly showed the even pace of very tiny little soles, fading as they approached the elevator.

FACT 7: Paint in hallway
The hallway in the education building had spilled paint in it. Very small footprints led from the paint to the elevator.

"This must be where they made their escape," Katy said. She walked to the elevator and pushed the button. After a short wait, the bell dinged and the doors opened.

There was one more set of footprints in the elevator, along with a very small running shoe. I examined the shoe; it looked new and unscuffed, but there was indeed paint on the sole. "Looks like it matches the prints," I said.

FACT 8: Running shoe
There was a single running shoe in the elevator. Its sole matched the footprints.

We got on the elevator; I pushed the button and we descended. "This leads to the tunnel, which leads to every other building on the quad," Bepi mused. "It'd be easy to escape this way."

UNDERGROUND TUNNEL: GENERAL EDUCATION BUILDING ENTRANCE

The elevator doors opened, revealing the familiarly dark and creepy tunnel. We turned on the flashlight functions on our tablets and stepped out of the elevator.

The first thing I noticed was a second shoe: the pair of the first one.

FACT 8: Running shoes (REVISED)
There was a single running shoe in the elevator. Its sole matched the footprints. The other shoe was found just outside the elevator in the tunnel.

"So... weird," Katy mused. "One of them was left in the elevator, and the other one was left just outside the elevator? Why would someone do that?" I glanced at her; I thought it was a neutral look, but she blushed and rubbed the back of her head. "...No interpretation, right."

We continued down the hallway, halfway expecting the killer to loom up out of the darkness and come after us at any moment.

UNDERGROUND TUNNEL: JUNCTION

As we neared the well-lit junction of the tunnel, Bepi seemed to have had enough. "Ugh, I hate this place," he muttered. "You know it doesn't have to be this creepy. Monokuma probably designed it to-WAUGH!" With a shout, he comically flailed his arms and fell down onto his backside.

I jumped, and I felt my feet skirting smoothly across the floor. "Wha!" I managed to keep my balance, but only after a moment of disorientation that reminded me my one and only attempt to rollerblade.

"What the hell!" Bepi yelled. "Goddamn, the floor's slippery as hell." He rubbed his fingers against the floor, then smelled his hand. "It's soap." He shined his flashlight around the junction. "Whole place is slick with soapiness."

"Hey, look at this," Katy said, sliding closer to the drain in the center of the junction. She shone her light on a metal bucket, lying on its side. "Looks like there's some soapy water still left in it," she said.

FACT 9: Soap in junction
The floor of the underground junction was slippery from soap. A bucket was found nearby which looks like it was recently filled with soapy water.

Katy slid over to Bepi, reach down, and gracefully pulled him to his feet. "Jesus," he mused, "where'd you get such good balance?"

She grinned and twirled in a quick circle. "I was a figure skater when I was a kid! I'll teach you, if you want."

"I'll hold you to that, if we get out of here," Bepi grunted, rubbing his sore butt. "Is there anything else weird here?"

We shone our flashlights around for a few moments, scanning the space for anything unusual. I was about to give up, but then I noticed something strange in the floor near the drain.

I knelt down and ran my fingers across the floor. "Hey, look at this," I said. "It's some kind of... divot."

The others squatted next to me. There was a narrow mark in the floor, a couple of inches long, like something had chipped away the cement. "I have no idea if that was there before or not," Bepi said. "I think... wait." He reached down and pulled out a raggedy thread. He shone his light on it; it was mostly dark red, but on one end, it was white.

FACT 10: Mark on floor
There was a dent on the floor of the junction where it looks like something chipped away the cement. Inside the dent, there was a raggedy thread, which was mostly dark red but faded to white on one end.

"It might not be important," Bepi said. "Who knows how long this has even been here."

I nodded. "Still, good eye to notice it." I stood and regarded each of the four hallways branching out into the darkness. "If someone did run this way, I don't see any way of knowing which way they went. Any ideas?"

"Let's go to the dorm," Bepi said. "It'd be a good idea to check Morgan's room, anyway."

I nodded, secretly relieved to get out of the underground tunnel. We carefully walked straight ahead towards the elevator to the dorm.

DORM: COMPUTER LAB

We emerged from the elevator to a small hallway, which led us into the computer lab. We quickly searched, but none of us had been in there much, so we didn't know what might be unusual. As we searched, Katy looked over at me hesitantly. "Saya, may I ask a quick question?"

I glanced up from the trash can I was rifling through. "Yeah?"

She played with one of the long tails of her hair. "Why did you ask me to come investigate with you?"

"Hmm?" I blinked at her, confused. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Well... I get Giuseppe. He's your sidekick." At his glare, she shrugged. "Or you're his sidekick, whatever."

"I don't think anyone is anyone's sidekick…"

"Whatever. But… why did you pick me?"

"I thought you could help. And I thought we'd all work well together." I tilted my head at her, confused. "Why are you asking?"

"I don't know. People don't usually take me very seriously, is all. They think I don't notice, but I do."

I shrugged. "Well, they're dumb. We take you seriously." Bepi nodded.

Katy looked down, blushing. "Okay. Well, thanks."

I wasn't sure what to say to any of this. "Well. Let's get moving, all right?"

DORM: ENTRANCE LOBBY

I involuntarily shuddered as we stepped into the lobby, remembering Jane's... warning? threat?... whatever it was. Bepi glanced at me, concerned. "You okay?"

"Oh... yeah." I nodded at the information desk. "I just ran into Jane this morning. She... said some stuff."

He nodded. "Yeah, when she got off her 'shift,' right before breakfast, I tried walking over to the cafeteria with her. She made it pretty clear she was not very interested in being friends."

Katy walked over to the solarium and peeked inside. "I don't think anyone went in here," she announced. "Me and Lucina hung out in there last night, and it looks exactly the same as when we left."

I looked at her, feeling tension in my forehead. "You and Lucina?"

"Yeah, we sat right there," she said, pointing to a nearby tuft of grass.

Bepi seemed to notice my distraction, so he spoke up. "When were you there?"

Katy tapped her chin in thought. "Um, from sevenish to... eleven, maybe?"

"And you were sitting right there, facing the glass wall?" Bepi indicated the wall separating the lobby from the solarium. "Did you see Morgan?"

Katy shook her head. "Um, maybe right after dinner, heading upstairs. But definitely not after that."

Bepi scanned the room. "Interesting. No matter which elevator you use, there's no way to go to or from the dorm rooms without going through this room. And since there were guards in the hallway all night, that means there was someone keeping watch from the end of dinner all the way to the beginning of breakfast."

FACT 11: Lobby witnesses
Katy and Lucina could see the lobby all evening; Katy thinks she may have seen Morgan going upstairs early and not afterwards. Jane was at the information desk from before sun-up to the start of breakfast. They would have seen anything suspicious in the lobby during that time.

"Let's come down and search the solarium if we have time," Bepi said. "I definitely want to make sure to look at Morgan's room." He paused, staring at me. "Um, right, Saya?"

I blinked. "Oh. Yeah. Good idea." We went to the west elevator and headed upstairs.

DORM: UPSTAIRS HALLWAY

After a familiarly interminable elevator ride, the doors finally opened and we stepped out into the hallway. Katy blinked in surprise and pointed to the trash can, sitting upright where I'd put it next to the wall. "Oh, I was wondering. What is this thing?"

"Oh, right." I knelt over the trash can; the same mix of ashes and semi-burnt T-shirts were wadded up inside. "Someone set a bunch of T-shirts on fire in the middle of the night last night. Me and JP had to come try to put it out."

Bepi frowned. "I assumed Morgan did it, but I don't think anyone actually saw, right?"

I nodded. "It fits him, but we don't know for sure."

FACT 12: Burning T-shirts
Someone set a fire in a trash can at around 2:30 last night, right outside the west elevator. JP and I both came to try to extinguish it.

We continued down the hall, around the first corner, to the middle, where Morgan's room was. I'd been worried about getting inside, but there was a sign attached to the door: Murder victims don't get privacy! and then a winky face and Monokuma's signature.

We glanced darkly at one another. "Oh, I've been wondering something," Bepi said. "Katy, you said you saw Morgan go upstairs after dinner, but not come back down, right?"

Katy nodded. "People were walking in and out of the lobby all evening, but I definitely would have noticed if that creep was one of them."

Bepi rubbed his chin in thought. "So, did he ever go back downstairs?" He looked at me. "Would it be possible for him to get out of this room and to an elevator without any of the guards noticing?"

I looked back and forth down the hallway. "I guess it's possible," I said. "We mostly just kind of walk around. When we stay still, it's usually right around here. But the farther away from the elevators, the harder it'd be, and this room is right in the middle. Unless something weird was happening, you'd have to be really lucky to sneak in or out of here without running into at least one of us."

FACT 13: Morgan's room
Morgan's room is near the middle of the hallway, directly between the two elevators. It's possible but very unlikely someone could sneak out to an elevator without being noticed during the night.

DORM: MORGAN'S ROOM

We surveyed the messy room carefully. "I was here yesterday," I said. "I... tried to talk to the vandal. He wasn't very helpful."

"Do you notice anything different from when you were here?" Katy asked.

I looked around carefully. I felt like some things were different, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what. "That chest of drawers," I said, pointing. "I... don't think that was there, before. It's been moved a little bit to the left."

Bepi went to the chest of drawers and shoved it over, revealing a small in the wall, like it had been hit with a foot or an elbow.

FACT 14: Dent in wall
A piece of furniture was moved in Morgan's room. Behind it was a dent in the wall where something had damaged it.

"Hm," Bepi said. "Yeah, I think it was a good idea to come here."

"Maybe it doesn't have to do with the murder," Katy suggested. "Maybe Rocky bumped into it vacuuming, or something."

"Therion and Rocky both said they couldn't get in here last night," I reminded her. "As far as we know, no one has been here except for the vandal after I left yesterday."

FACT 13: Morgan's room (REVISED)
Morgan's room is near the middle of the hallway, directly between the two elevators. It's possible but very unlikely someone could sneak out to an elevator without being noticed during the night. Therion and Rocky both say they couldn't get in to do their chores last night, and it is unknown if was able to get inside other than Morgan himself.

Bepi nodded. "Let's keep looking."

We searched. I looked over at the paint supplies, noting something that looked a bit out of place. I picked it up; it was a short length of bungee cord, about a foot long. "This is weird," I said.

FACT 15: Bungee cord
There was a short length of bungee cord among Morgan's paint supplies in his room. I don't think it was there before.

Bepi looked closer at the bed while Katy searched the bathroom. Bepi leaned in, thoughtfully. "Hey, check this out."

I went closer, noticing he was looking at a small speck of red on the otherwise pristine bed. "Looks like blood," he muttered. He began searching the bed more closely, eventually pushing it away from the wall to look behind and under it.

He froze, paling. I leaned in to see what he was looking at; a small, pink object lying next to the wall. "Welp," he said, "that's a finger."

It was a finger; dried blood staining the severed end. "It looks like someone tossed it over here, or something. It bounced off the bed and landed behind it."

FACT 16: Severed finger
There was a severed finger behind Morgan's bed. It looked to have been casually discarded rather than hidden deliberately.

"I can think of more disrespectful things to do with a finger," I remarked.

"Oh god please don't tell me whatever it is you guys just found," Katy said behind us. She stood in the bathroom doorway, holding a small piece of paper. "I found this," she said. "It was in the sink."

I blinked. "Inside the sink?"

"Yeah. His tablet was in there, too. It was pretty easy to find." She handed it over.

Bepi took it and we looked at it together. "It's a receipt from the student stores," I said.

Giuseppe glowered. "For the machete. Bought by The Ultimate Vandal at 3:30 last night."

FACT 17: Receipt
A receipt from the student stores was found in Morgan's bathroom sink. It shows that The Ultimate Vandal bought the machete at 3:30 last night.

We checked a few more places but did not find any other obvious clues. "What do you think?" Giuseppe asked.

"Not sure," I replied. "I need to ask Ashley something."

They both looked surprised at this, but to my relief, they nodded.

DORM: UPSTAIRS HALLWAY

We stepped out into the hallway, and Katy turned towards the east elevator. "Uh, hold on," I said. "Let's go the other way. There's a cup full of, um, urine in that elevator."

Katy blinked at me, looking appropriately baffled. "Urine? Why?" I just shrugged innocently.

FACT 18: Cup in east elevator
Right after JP and I extinguished the fire, he relieved himself in the cup Monokuma gave him and put it on the other elevator. I guess I'm keeping his secret about this.

We walked to the west elevator; I think the others were confused about my detective technique, but thankfully, they didn't say anything.

We got onto the elevator and rode down. The slow, slow ride gave me time to think about the evidence. The pieces were almost together. Almost.

GENERAL EDUCATION BUILDING: AUDITORIUM

We quickly ran back to the auditorium. Ashley looked rather unhappy at having to sit there with a dead body, but Therion seemed as unflappable as always.

Ashley walked right up to us, hands on her hips. "Well?" she asked.

"Um, we found some clues," I replied. "But I wanted to ask you something."

She blinked. "Me?"

I nodded. "You come to class early, right? Did you see Morgan come in today, or was he already here when you arrived?"

"I wasn't as early as I'd hoped today," she answered, frowning. "After we all dispersed from breakfast, I had a planning conversation with Earl, so I was only able to be ten minutes early. And yes, he was already here." She pointed to his headless body. "Sitting there with his head on the desk like a weirdo. Dumb murdered weirdo."

FACT 19: Ashley's testimony
Ashley says she arrived at class ten minutes before it started, and Morgan was already there, his head already down on the desk like it was the whole class.

"Okay," I said. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. "One more question. Was anyone late to breakfast this morning, or did they leave breakfast early?"

"No one was late," Therion replied. "Not more than five minutes or so. Important?"

I crossed my arms, thinking. "Maybe. Did anyone leave early?"

"Just you," Therion said. "Looked upset. Everyone else stayed until… fifteen minutes before class starts. Approximately."

Ashley shrilly spoke up. "Rodrigo left to go look for the others, but that was just five minutes or so."

FACT 20: Breakfast
Nicole, Barrett, and Morgan were missing from breakfast this morning. Everyone else arrived basically on time. Rodrigo left at one point but then returned after five minutes. Except for me, no one left early; everyone else stayed in the cafeteria until fifteen minutes before the start of class.

I nodded my head sharply. "All right. I think I know who did it."

"What?!" Katy nearly fell over in her shock. "How could you..."

But she was interrupted by a loud burst of static from hidden speakers. "Attention!" Monokuma's voice announced. "Your investigation period has ended! Please report to the main quad!"

Bepi gave me an odd look. "Well, I hope you're on the right track, because I have no idea. Are you ready for the trial?"

"The one where, if we're wrong, we all die?"

"Yes. That one."

I found myself somehow smiling. "I think I am."

MAIN QUAD

We all convened in the quad. I looked around at my classmates, a bedraggled, tense group of kids. One of us was a murderer, I thought. One of us was trying to get the rest of us killed.

I noticed Emily, who was no longer crying, but who looked absolutely ruined. Lucina stood by her, hand on her shoulder, doing the best she could. I walked over to them and did my best to appear confident. "It'll be okay," I told them.

With a jaunty spring, Monokuma appeared, balancing on top of the monolith. He whacked his paw against the top of the sculpture, and a rumbling gradually built and built under our feet. With some sort of amazing, futuristic technology, the monolith rose and shifted into a large box featuring elevator doors.

The doors opened. "Please step inside!" Monokuma announced. "Trial grounds are below! Time to see if you spoiled babies can handle yourselves in the real world!"

Grimly, we filed into the elevator, and with a jerking groan, it began to descend.

My life was really, truly, on the line. God help me, I was kind of exhilarated.

Author's note:

Okay, there's your first investigation. I put a lot of work into making the mystery fair and solvable at this point (though it might also be difficult!). A warning: "Fact" items (mostly in the investigation, but also from previous chapters) are meant to be useful at helping you wrap your mind around everything and keep track of things concisely, but they are NOT like "truth bullets" in the sense that they are necessarily ALL the information you need to fully prove the identity of the murderer.

Any guesses?