I was imagining a literal courtroom, like you see on SVU or something, but instead the elevator doors opened to reveal a giant, dusty room. The walls were lined with enormous shelves with very old-looking books, and there was gothic-looking architecture: bannisters and buttresses. It looked all old and wooden... kind of Harry Potter-y.

But in the middle of the room was a huge circle of lecterns, and they looked sleek and ultra-modern. The effect would have been jarring, but nothing was affecting me too strongly right now. I was thinking too hard about how to make my case.

There was one thing I was missing; one thing that tied it all together... a piece of evidence we never found. Would I be able to convince everyone without it?

Monokuma led us each to stand behind a lectern, so we could all see one another's faces as we stood in a circle. I wondered what I looked like to the murderer.

There was one empty lectern. Above it hung a black-and-white photograph of Morgan's face. There was a purple X over it, presumably indicating that he was deceased.

A purple X. I glanced at Monokuma. He got the last laugh after all.

"All right, you evil brats, this is it!" he chortled. "We are here because of the terrible murders of Morgan Lee and the Ultimate Vandal. You will have a period of time determined by my attention span to discuss the evidence! Afterwards, you will vote for the killer. If a majority of you is correct, then congratulations! You go back to your dorm, and the killer is executed. But if a majority of you is incorrect..." he giggled... "the killer will be going free, and the rest of you will be executed."

"Oh, shit!" Rocky yelped.

"If you paid attention in class, you'd already know all this," Ashley snapped. She crossed her arms and huffed. "We must be efficient and clear during this trial! We..."

"Hey," Monokuma interrupted. "I didn't say you could start yet!" He stared down at us for a silent moment.

Rodrigo cautiously raised a finger in the air. "Um, may we..."

"Shut up!" There was another silence. "All right, you may begin."

Ashley rolled her eyes. "As I was saying, we must be efficient and clear. The first thing we must do is lay out the evidence that has been collected in a concise..."

"Barrett did it!" Nicole exclaimed.

"What?!" Barrett shouted in rage, but after a moment, his expression shifted to actually looking slightly hurt. "Hey, I thought we were getting along."

"Yeah, but you're all sketch," Nicole argued.

"I think it's not very useful to throw out accusations at this point," Rodrigo said. "I was busy with protecting my fellow students, and I am not even certain of the details of this horrible crime."

"I barely even know who died!" Rocky added. "Creepy hoodie guy, right?"

"Okay, let's all get on the same page about the murder," I said. "Morgan was in class with us, sitting in the back row. He was definitely alive then. During class, Monokuma made an... announcement about Emily which she found upsetting. The rest of us went out the main doors to comfort her, but Morgan stayed in the auditorium. After about five minutes, I heard a thump come from the classroom. I went inside and found Morgan sitting in the same seat, dead."

"And his head fell off!" JP added. "Don't forget that part!"

Rodrigo frowned in thought. "It's indeed troubling such horrors could have been taking place a mere room away." His face grew dark. "I feel I know what happened. He was resting his head on the desk, lost in his own madness. The killer crept towards him, holding a broadsword. They struck! And with one clean swipe, his head was separated from his body!"

Juliet shuddered. "Then they just sat him up again like some kind of... sculpture. It's just awful."

"Uh, let's hold on a second," I said. "That's... there's a couple of things that don't add up there. First, I don't think the culprit used a broadsword. I think it's much more likely he was decapitated with..."

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.

"Doesn't that make more sense?" I continued. "The weapon we found very close to the crime scene was involved?"

Rodrigo nodded. "Aye, of course. I'm not used to a world where broadswords can't be found in every latrine and kitchen."

Therion stared blankly forward in thought. "Culprit cut his head off. Deposited the weapon. Then made escape out side door."

"Yes!" Katy agreed. "When they ran out the door, that must have been the thump that Saya heard!"

Therion nodded. "Side doors lead down to elevator. So killer's escape was through the underground tunnel."

"But who could have done that?" Juliet asked. She squinted in suspicion. "Who was in class that was missing when we were comforting Emily?"

"Well, Jane, Barrett, Nicole, Therion, and Rocky weren't in class at all," Katy said. "But I'm not sure if anyone was there but didn't go outside with the rest of us."

Earl suddenly shouted in shock. "I remember who was in class but who wasn't outside afterwards!" he bellowed. "But it's too horrible to contemplate such a possibility! It was..."

We stood outside the auditorium awkwardly. Juliet held Emily while she cried; Lucina, Katy, and Rodrigo stood nearby. Earl argued with Bepi and JP, off to the side.

Earl pointed a finger starkly at his co-leader. "...Coelho!"

We all stared at Ashley, who just crossed her arms in irritation. "Well, yes, I correctly sensed there was no use to following the rest of you outside. I just left."

"And you went out the side door?" Bepi asked. "The one that leads to the tunnel elevator?"

"It's the only way I could have gone without bumping into your weird crying session!" Ashley snapped. "I always use the tunnel. It shaves ninety seconds off my walk to and from class."

"And did you... notice anything weird?" I asked her. "In the hallway to the elevator, or in the tunnel?"

Ashley had a slight blush on her cheeks as she glared at me. "No."

"Are you sure? No... paint?" I watched her expression carefully.

"No. You're being asinine right now."

I frowned. "After we found Morgan's body, there was something pretty weird in the tunnel leading to the elevator. It was..."

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.

Jane raised an eyebrow. "Very tiny footprints, hmm? How interesting."

"Yo, I'm in the clear then!" Rocky exclaimed. He threw his leg up onto his lectern proudly. "I got super big feet!"

"All of us have big feet compared to those footprints," Bepi remarked. "Except maybe one person."

Ashley turned pale. "W...wait! Think..."

"This is cold, hard evidence," Nicole interrupted. "You can't fake the size of your feet!" She shook her head ruefully. "The fashion designer who finally achieves that will have it made forever."

"Yeah," JP added. "And the rest of us definitely left. You were the only one in the classroom!"

"Well, we don't know that," Bepi pointed out. "Someone could have been hiding in the A/V room."

Nicole waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, whatever. This isn't complicated. I bet if you look at the soles of her shoes right now, you'd see paint on 'em."

"No, that's not true," I argued. "There wouldn't be any paint on her soles, even if she did make the footprints. Because..."

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.

"...we found the shoes that made the footprints. They were left behind in the tunnel and the elevator."

Nicole rolled her eyes. "Oh, whatever. Would the shoes fit her better than anyone else here? Then it was her."

Ashley slammed her hands down on her lectern. "No!" she shrieked. "Think about this rationally!" She looked at me. "Did the paint cover the entire hallway, wall to wall?"

I frowned. "No, there was a puddle in the middle of the hallway."

"Aha!" She pointed a finger in the air. "So come on. Why would I, directly after killing someone, deliberately walk through a puddle of fresh paint when I could have just walked around it? Then, why would I wait until later to discard my shoes, in two different places? Either I'm the biggest moron in the world, or someone is trying to frame me!"

Emily tapped her chin. "That does make sense, actually," she said. "Most of us knew that you take the tunnel to and from class, so it'd be easy to prepare. But how would the culprit get your shoes?"

"They didn't," Ashley huffed. "I take careful stock of my entire inventory every morning, and every shoe was accounted for. Believe me, if I had a missing shoe, you would hear about it."

"Oh!" Juliet exclaimed. "They could have just bought the shoes, right? At the student stores." She gestured to me and Bepi. "Remember?"

Juliet spun in a slow circle, equally amazed. "Wow, a whole patio furniture section? Rock-climbing equipment?" She clasped her hands and cooed. "Aww, look, they have a bunch of kids' clothes!"

I nodded. "Yes. Ashley, what you're saying is plausible, but it's not evidence. Do you have any proof you didn't stay behind in the classroom after the rest of us left?"

She glowered. "Of course I don't! But I'll be sure to take detailed logs of my whereabouts at all times, from now on."

"Let us calm ourselves," Earl said. "Coelho is not the only potential suspect! Also, any of the students who were absent to class could have done this terrible thing!"

JP nodded. "Who is that, again? Rocky, Therion, Jane, Nicole, and... Bomb-Man."

Barrett grinned. "I like that. Everyone call me Bomb-Man from now on, eh?"

"But some of them have alibis, don't they?" Katy asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, two of them, so far."

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.

"Nicole and, uh, Bomb-Man are each other's alibis."

"Oh yeah," Nicole said. "We were in my room the whole time, trying on clothes."

"But wait," Rodrigo piped up. "Couldn't they be lying to protect one another?"

"That's be pretty dumb!" Monokuma piped up. "There ain't no second place trophy in this game! Help the murdered get away with their crime, and you get executed along with everyone else!"

I looked at the others. "Do any of you have alibis for class time?"

"I was hanging out in the cafeteria making my beats," Rocky said.

"I was just in my room," Jane said, making it as clear as possible she thought she was far above having to answer the question. "Doing science."

"Was in my room too," Therion said. "Went to the student stores for Mello-Yello. Then went back to room. Saw no one."

It was amazing how much this felt like a chess game. But it was a weird kind of chess game, where you have to learn new rules as you go, and you also have to explain the rules to your opponent at the same time.

"Let's take a step back," I said. "We've been operating under a certain assumption: that the killer cut off Morgan's head in the auditorium just after class. But what if that isn't true?"

"What?!" Barrett yelled. "That's crazy."

"Um, yes," Emily agreed hesitantly. "That has to have been when it happened. He was alive, and then we went outside, and then we came back in and his head was cut off."

Bepi and I shared a look. "I think I know what Saya's talking about," he said. "And she's right. There is reason to believe that his head was not cut off right after class." He scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "This is a weird question, but... has anyone here ever seen someone get their head cut off?"

Jane raised her hand coolly. "It was under tightly controlled, clinical conditions, however."

"I see what you mean, Perfetto!" Earl yelled, ignoring Jane. "Those who have not felt the agony and excitement of the battlefield may not know. But there was something missing from the crime scene, if he was indeed killed there! It was..."

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.

"...the blood! Where was all the blood?"

"Yes," Bepi said. "You cut off a guy's head, it bleeds a lot. And... not in an easy to control way, either. There should have been blood everywhere."

"Wait, wait," Rocky said. "You're saying he got up and went somewhere else, and got his head cut off there, and then someone dragged his body back to the auditorium?"

"There wasn't a lot of time to do that," Emily said. "Maybe... no."

I leaned forward. "What were you going to say, Emily?"

She blushed adorably. "Um. It's probably silly."

"Nonsense!" Earl bellowed. "We all value your intelligence and problem-solving skills! Please, say your thoughts!"

Emily had a small, nervous smile at his compliments. "Well. I was just going to say... maybe his head was cut off a while ago, and he was already dead when class started."

There was a burst of activity; several people argued with her. I waited for it to die down a bit before I said, "I think she's right."

"But... that can't be!" Rodrigo argued.

"I think it can. There's evidence to that effect. There's..."

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.

"...the machete. The blood on it had dried by the time we investigated."

"This is absolutely nuts, though!" JP yelled. "No. Come on. We all SAW HIM. Right? Sitting there in class. Alive. Making weird noises and being all creepy."

"Did you?" Emily asked, the shyness beginning to seep away.

"Yes! Come on, so did you!"

Emily shook her head. "No, I didn't. I saw a person sitting in the back row with their head down on a desk and their hood pulled up. But I never saw who it was. I just assumed."

I looked around; everyone was varying degrees of shocked. Jane pinched her nose in irritation. "Wait. NONE of you saw his face?"

Katy put her hands to her head in bafflement. "That... that was someone else the whole time? Morgan was just propped up somewhere with his head already cut off while someone else wore his hoodie and pretended to be him?"

"I think we have to consider the possibility," I replied.

"So... when was he killed?" Katy asked. "It could have been any time since I saw him in the hallway this morning!"

There was a pause. I just looked at her.

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

Katy smacked her forehead. "Oh my god, I didn't see him then, either."

Ashley laughed triumphantly. "And this means you're all idiots for suspecting me! Because I was clearly in class at the same time. I couldn't have been impersonating him!"

I looked around the circle carefully. "Hmm," I muttered, trying to look thoughtful. "The last time anyone saw him was at dinner, right? After that, there was no sign of him anywhere until class time."

"Hey, wait a second," Katy said. "That's not right! Remember, Lucina?"

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.

"We saw him going to the elevators after dinner, right? I didn't see his face clearly, but it's not true there was no sign of him."

Lucina waved her hands to get attention. She tore off a piece of paper from her notebook and passed it to Earl who was at the lectern next to her.

"Sorenson writes that she saw him after dinner, going towards one of the elevators in the dorm. She did not see his face clearly, but she did catch a brief glimpse of his hair, within his hood!"

"He did have pretty distinctive hair," Emily mused.

Jane narrowed her eyes. "Even if we assume she actually identified him, that doesn't help us. That was right after everyone saw him."

"No!" Katy argued. "It helps us a lot! Because that's the most confusing thing about this whole murder, to me. The last time anyone saw him, he was going up to his room. So how did he end up all the way in another building without anyone seeing?"

Earl crossed his arms and shook his head. "Let us be certain! All here deny that they saw him during the night?"

Everyone shook their heads or otherwise indicated no.

"At least one of us is lying," Earl said with odd seriousness. He sighed and hung his head. When he looked back up, he seemed strangely human, for the first time. "I must apologize to whoever feels they are in such a position," he said shakily. "My leadership did not protect you from performing this act, and that means I've failed you."

There was a pause; I don't think anyone had seem him like this. "Earl..." Ashley said, but she did not say anything else.

Finally, Nicole just rolled her eyes. "It's not you, Tankboy. Not unless you did it. We got a psycho here in this room with us, and that's all there is to it."

Juliet clasped her hands in front of her heart. "Oh... I don't think that's true!" she said. "I don't think anyone here is evil. We have to trust whoever it is had a good reason." Multiple people looked at her like she was crazy, and she shrunk in on herself slightly. "I... I don't mean we shouldn't find them. Just... just I can't believe they're truly bad in their heart."

"I don't know about that," I replied, glowering. "This person was willing to cut a man's head off while he was still alive. That sounds pretty bad-in-heart to me."

"Yeah!" Rocky said. "And that clears me. Because I am way too squeamish to do that."

Therion's gaze slightly hardened. "Said you have been in a lot of fights."

"Fights is different from cutting someone's head off!" Rocky defended. "I mean... I bet Rodrigo did it! He probably learned how to cut off heads at knight school!" He blinked, then chuckled. "Oh man, 'knight school.' I didn't even mean to do that."

Rodrigo put his palm across his chest. "I would never violate one of God's commandments!" he stated.

"My money's on creepy science lady," Barrett spoke up. "Bird probably cuts heads off mice all day long. Fwsh fwsh!"

Jane crossed her arms and glared. "Mouse guillotines are entirely humane."

"Oi, well..."

"Hey!" Bepi yelled out before another argument could begin. "Hey, guys, let's... let's back off this particular conversation, okay?" He gave me a very odd look. "I think Saya might be the one making assumptions, now."

I tilted my head in confusion. "What do you mean?"

He frowned for one slight second. "You said the culprit cut off Morgan's head while he was still alive. There's evidence suggesting that's not true."

"What?!" Earl exclaimed.

"Two things." Bepi seemed to be getting into his role as information-giver. I knew he had it in him. "First, the thing we mentioned before."

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.

"If you cut the head off a body that's still alive, then blood will spurt everywhere. But if the body is dead and the heart's not beating, then it's not nearly so much. His clothes or body would be messier if he was alive."

"Ugh, god, why do you know this stuff..." Katy mumbled.

Bepi grimaced. "Well, cover your ears, because this next part is even worse. Because, Morgan's head wasn't cut off smoothly. It took several cuts, and the first few probably wouldn't be lethal on their own."

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.

"Gauugh," Rocky groaned, shuddering. "Okay, but so what?"

"Combine that with the email we got," Bepi answered.

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.

"If he was alive when he was getting cut, there would be defensive wounds. At the very least, his neck would have been a more difficult target to hit, and there'd be wounds on his chest or face. But there's nothing." He shrugged. "I guess he might have been drugged or sedated. Would that could as 'poison or venom?'"

"Yep!" Monokuma replied cheerfully. "I do a complete toxicology report. I wouldn't try to trick you with a misleadingly worded Body Discovery Announcement! If I say no poison or venom, that means no drugs that are relevant, too!" He glowered. "I'll never know where he got that weed, though."

"'Not misleadingly worded,'" Therion said. "About email that mentions decapitation but neglects to say it's the cause of death."

"Pu hu hu! I am a fickle little bear!"

"Ugh," Ashley mumbled. "So, how did he die?"

"Let's leave that aside for now," I said. "I think it's more useful to think about when he died and where he died."

Katy put a finger up. "Oh, I remembered something I wanted to ask a while ago." She looked at Ashley. "You said you took the tunnel after you left class, right?"

"Yes," Ashley said, suspicious.

"And you didn't see any spilled paint. But, I didn't get a chance to ask. Did you notice anything else that was unusual?"

Ashley paled slightly. "Er. No."

Earl looked at her seriously. "Coelho, we all need to be honest."

Ashley scrunched her face up in consternation, then she sighed. "Fine! Part of the tunnel was really slippery, and I fell down! Onto my buttocks! Are you happy?"

"Dude, you could've just not said the part about the buttocks..." JP mumbled.

Ignoring him, Earl nodded. "Thank you!"

I frowned. "Hm, so it was just slippery after class? Not before, too?"

Ashley squeezed her eyes shut and flailed her little arms madly. "Gauugh, okay! I fell down on the way to class too! ALSO on my buttocks! I fell on my buttocks twice!"

"It's really just getting weird you keep saying 'buttocks' now," JP said.

"So the tunnel was slippery, so what?" Nicole asked dismissively. "It's probably just Crisco."

"Why would it be... whatever." Rocky shook his head to keep from getting distracted. "I know what it was! It was all the blood, right?! That's where all the blood was!"

"I think you're... sort of right," I replied. "It wasn't the blood, but..."

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.

"...I think it might have been soapy water used to clean away the blood."

"Soapy water?" Jane rubber her chin and looked around suspiciously. "Someone was tasked with mopping the floors, right?"

Rodrigo raised his hand. "That was I. But I was not required to clean in the tunnel."

"That isn't all," I said. "There's more reason to believe his head was cut off in the tunnel junction. There's two pieces of evidence, if we consider them together..."

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.

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.

Earl closed his eyes and shoot his head grimly. "I can picture it, yes. He lies on the cement floor, and the culprit brings the blade down across his neck several times. They end up striking the floor with the blade, damaging both!"

I nodded. "And whatever the thread is, it ended up with blood on it. The soapy water washed away most of the blood, but not what had soaked into the thread."

"But was he killed in the tunnel?" Emily asked. "It certainly is creepy down there."

"There's two pieces of evidence suggesting he wasn't killed in the tunnel," I said. "Or at least, there's another location where important events happened."

"Upstairs in the dorm, right?" Rocky offered. "No-talk-tall-blue-hair-girl saw him go that way."

"You need serious help coming up with nicknames," Nicole remarked.

"Oh, there's other stuff too!" JP enthused. "There's…"

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 don't know for sure that was him, but it sure seemed like him!"

"Yeah!" Katy agreed. "And I didn't see his face, but there was this morning, too!"

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.

"Yes, yes!" Earl yelled enthusiastically. "Whether it was our victim or an impostor, there was definitely suspicious activity upstairs in the dorm! So that is an important location for the crime!"

I gasped. "Now that I think of it... there was interesting evidence in his room. Evidence not only that a struggle occurred there, but that someone tried to cover it up!"

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.

Therion gave me a dry look. "Vandal was unpredictable. Could have damaged own wall."

"That's possible!" Earl said. "But it is still suspicious information!"

Therion crossed his arms. "Still iffy. Anything more solid about victim's location last night?"

"Oh!" Katy exclaimed. "Yes! We can place him at a particular location last night!"

"What?!" Nicole snapped. "This is huge! Why didn't you say so?"

"I just forgot," Katy said defensively. "But it's pretty cut-and-dried!"

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.

"Oh my goodness!" Emily exclaimed. "That means... not only was he alive at 3:30, but he bought the weapon that ended up cutting off his own head!"

"But why?" Rodrigo grunted thoughtfully. "Was he... planning a murder of his own?"

"So we still don't know where he was killed, if it wasn't the tunnel!" Juliet exclaimed. "Maybe he was killed in the student stores? Did anyone search them?"

Nicole talked herself through the timeline out loud, counting each step on her fingers. "So, he goes upstairs after dinner. He sneaks out of his room and gets on an elevator and goes to the student stores. Then he buys a machete and... gets killed and... I dunno, I've lost the plot, here."

"Now, hold on a second," I said. "Nicole, you should know better than almost anyone else that's not likely."

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 anyone was able to get inside other than Morgan himself.

"You're one of the nighttime guards," I continued. "Do you think someone could leave a room in the middle of the hallway and sneak over to one of the elevators without being discovered?"

She frowned. "Huh. You'd have to be pretty lucky."

Emily waved her hands in the air frantically. "Can we all back up, please? I'm afraid I'm getting lost about when people saw Morgan and when it wasn't really him. Can we try to make a timeline?"

"An excellent idea!" Earl yelled. "You think like an officer, my stargazing friend! Let us start in the evening. Multiple individuals saw Morgan at our evening meal, yes?"

We nodded. "And the next anyone saw him was just after dinner, when Lucina and Katy saw him go upstairs," Nicole said. "And... for now, let's just trust Lucina really did see his hair."

Ashley rubbed her chin in thought. "That's the last time anyone saw him for sure, correct?"

"I knocked on his door to vacuum his room," Rocky said. "I guess he coulda been in there, but he didn't answer."

"Same for his laundry," Therion confirmed.

"And next was the burning T-shirts, which happened around 2:30," I said. "Though we don't have confirmation he did it."

"Yes," Therion said. "Then machete at 3:30. Was the vandal for certain."

"Um, well..." I said. "It... wasn't, actually, necessarily."

Katy gaped at me. "Saya, you saw the receipt yourself!"

"Well, yes," I agreed. "But how many of us have bought something from the student stores? Do you remember how you do it?"

He scanned the Funyuns, then he scanned his tablet. The machine beeped and, a few seconds later, output a small white receipt. Bepi took it and glanced it over. "It's got the item I bought, the amount I spent, and... hm. Not my name, but my talent." He showed it to us.

"For the 'ultimate vandal' to buy the machete, he didn't need to actually be there. All that's needed is his tablet."

"Kumaputor!" Monokuma bellowed.

I rolled my eyes. "So actually, we don't know that Morgan himself bought the machete."

There was a brief silence. Finally, Bepi spoke. "Well, okay then. That's a question mark. But next was when Katy saw him in the upstairs hallway, in the morning."

"Oh, yes," Katy said. "He ran right by me, right when I was on my way to breakfast. But I didn't see his face."

"Wait!" Rodrigo yelled. "I have realized something! Katy did not see his face, but it's not possible for it to have been an impostor!"

JP frowned. "Why?"

"Because of our magic doors!" Rodrigo looked proud of himself. "Friend Katy says the individual ran into Morgan's room. But he couldn't have been able to open the door if it wasn't him!"

"An excellent point!" Earl yelled. "We can only open the doors to our own rooms! So it WAS him, and our victim was alive until breakfast this morning! Nothing else is possible!"

"You're wrong," I said plainly.

Earl and Rodrigo both looked gobsmacked. "You have been seized by madness!" Rodrigo argued. "There is no way to open anyone else's door!"

"Um, sorry," I replied, genuinely sorry. "But... no. There's something else the culprit could have used to open Morgan's door. It's just... kind of gross."

Jane tilted her head. "Wh... oh god, you can't possibly mean..."

I nodded.

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

Jane scrunched up her nose in disgust. "Frightful. Simply frightful. But yes, a finger would in fact serve as a sort of 'key' to one of our rooms."

"So," I said, "the last thing we know for sure that Morgan did was go upstairs to the dorm rooms after dinner. Everything else could have been done by someone else."

"So we got nothing?!" Rocky bellowed. "He went upstairs in the dorm, yadda yadda yadda, he ends up in the classroom with his head cut off?" He waved his hands in the air in frustration. "You can't yadda-yadda a whole murder! Who yadda-yaddas a whole murder?"

"To the contrary," Earl said. "We know that he was not seen leaving his room, and it is unlikely he could sneak out of his room during the night without being seen."

"Yeah," I said. "Because of that, and because of the evidence of a struggle, I'd like to propose that Morgan was killed in his room BEFORE 3:30. Once that was done, it was easy to get his tablet and his finger."

"But they didn't have the machete yet!" Ashley argued. "So, how did they kill him?"

I frowned. "There was a lot of confusing evidence in his room. Katy, Bepi, was there anything else we found there which might be important? I just know we're missing something."

Bepi gave me that look again, but he spoke up. "Yes. There was something you said wasn't there yesterday."

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.

Ashley put her hands on her hips and leaned forward aggressively. "Ugh, there's no way a bungee cord is relevant! Because remember?"

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.

"And I examined his body when I was sitting in the auditorium while the rest of you investigated," she continued. "There weren't any other obvious wounds that could have killed him."

"You're right, Ashley," Bepi said (it looked like it physically hurt him to admit she was right about anything). "But this may be the sort of thing that you need combat experience to notice. And it may depend on some more misleading wording by Monokuma…"

"U pu pu! I am such a scamp!"

Bepi rolled his eyes. "Anyway, it's true he didn't have big wounds anywhere on his body but his hand and his neck. But the wounds on his neck…"

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.

"...it's possible he machete wasn't the only weapon the culprit used."

Rodrigo hung his head. "The demon strangled him?"

Emily gasped. "The bungee cord!"

"This makes so much sense!" I said enthusiastically. "You can buy that at the student stores too. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't there earlier."

"And then they cut the head off, which disguises the strangle wounds," Nicole muttered. "Christ, whoever this evil genius is, thanks for not killing me."

Jane gave me a sideways look. "May I say, we are putting a lot of trust in the testimony of..." she eyed Katy, Lucina, and myself, "...certain people. How do we know they're not lying?"

"We don't," Bepi replied. "But, we know they don't have any good REASON to lie, because we know they're not the killer."

Jane raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And just how do you figure that?"

"Because they were all in class today," he said simply. "And they were outside the classroom when the culprit set up the dead body."

Jane humphed. "Very well."

I could see why she would not want to go back to that line of reasoning, but I decided not to let her off the hook. "We haven't said this explicitly, but this limits our suspect list considerably. The only people who could have impersonated Morgan in the classroom are Rocky, Therion, and... you, Jane."

Jane just looked down at her chest, then back up at me with a raised eyebrow.

Nicole waved her hand at her dismissively. "Oh, it'd be easy to deal with that. A baggy hoodie like that? Not even sure you'd need any binding."

Jane clenched a fist, then she sighed. She gave me a hard look, then, to my surprise, smirked. "I think your whole theory is asinine," she said loosely. "You assert he was killed in his room. Then, his body was carried off to the tunnel, where he was decapitated, and finally to the classroom."

"Yes," I said.

"And part of your reason for believing this is that the hallway was guarded all night and no one saw him leave his room."

"Yes."

She made a great show of rolling her eyes. "Do I even need to say it outright? He couldn't sneak out of his room in the night, but someone could have sneaked out of his room while dragging his dead body?"

I started to speak then paused. "That's a good point. How would someone get his body out of his room?"

"Oh, maybe they did it before breakfast!" JP suggested. "After the sun came up, so the guards left!"

"Nnnnnope," Jane said. "I was in the lobby that whole time. I think I would have seen someone dragging a dead body. And I can't leave the desk without the bear yelling at me."

"Gotta do your chores!" Monokuma agreed.

JP was undeterred. "Well, maybe they did it after dinner, but before the sun went down! People were just kind of all walking around then, but there weren't any official guards yet."

"Uh, no," Katy said. "Because me and Lucina would have seen them for sure."

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.

"Maybe they did it real quick during breakfast?" Rocky suggested. "Like, they went upstairs, got his body, dragged it down to the tunnel, cut off his head, mopped up the blood, dragged his headless corpse up to the A/V room, and got back to the cafeteria, all in ten minutes?" He paused. "Okay, no one say anything, I can see the problems with that already."

"Maybe they threw his body out the window?" Juliet suggested.

"Impossible," Rodrigo replied. "His body would show signs of being thrown from a five-story window."

"Indeed," Jane agreed. "So, here is the heart of our mystery. If he was killed in his room, then how did the killer move his body? If he was not killed in his room, why did no one see him leave?"

"Oh!" JP literally hopped up and down in his excitement. "Oh oh oh oh! I know!"

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.

"A decoy!" he yelled. "A decoy!"

"Fuck, calm down," Barrett grumbled.

"But I figured it out!" JP enthused. "Okay. So, the culprit goes to his room some time after dinner and kills him. Maybe during the first guard shift? All they have to do is let the door to his room close behind them without being seen... even if they're seen on the way to one of the elevators, it won't be suspicious."

I tried to get his attention. "Um, JP…"

Nicole hmmed. "I guess that's possible. Plenty of traffic in the hallway during the early shift last night. Woulda seen someone dragging a body, though."

"But his body would still be in his room!" Emily said.

"Okay, so, hear me out," JP said. "The culprit goes to that one elevator..."

"Uh, let's call it 'the west elevator' just to keep it straight, okay?" I suggested.

"Oh, sure, sure. So, they go to the west elevator, and they set up the shirts in the trash can. They call the elevator, and right before riding it down, they light the shirts on fire."

"JP, hey…"

Emily nodded, getting it. "Oh, I see! Then, you and Saya run to the west elevator to put out the fire. Meanwhile, the culprit runs through the lobby downstairs to the EAST elevator. They ride that elevator up, go to Morgan's room, get his body, and then escape with it back through the east elevator!"

Earl nodded smartly. "It all adds up. They have the victim's tablet and can buy the machete. And they have all night to prepare the body in the underground tunnel!"

"And then, just before breakfast, they put on his hoodie and run back to his room," Juliet added. "But... why?"

"To plant the receipt and to return the tablet," Earl answered. "To create confusion about the mysterious events of the nighttime!"

"Fucker's actually brilliant," Barrett grunted.

"Everybody hold it!"

There was a pause. I was surprised by the loud, piercing quality of my own voice. I hadn't meant to be so aggressive, but things were getting out of control. "Uh, sorry. But... I don't think we're right about this."

"What do you mean?!" Earl bellowed.

I gave JP an apologetic smile. "Uh... I'm sorry, but I think I'm going to have to tell them."

He blanched. "What?! But... hmm." He nodded. "Oh yeah. I get it."

"Thanks." I addressed the whole circle. "So... JP and I didn't just hang around the waste basket for a long time. We were both by the west elevator for at most five minutes. He left pretty quickly and he went immediately to the east elevator. Because... uh."

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 failed at keeping this secret for him.

Ashley literally screamed when she heard what JP did.

Nicole shook her head angrily. "Pretty gross, dude." JP cringed.

"Well... anyway," I said, "the culprit couldn't have used the burning T-shirts as a decoy. There wasn't enough time. JP went to the other elevator too quickly."

"Well, but how do you know?" Jane challenged. "Maybe they were just really fast."

I hung my head, hoping it was convincing. "Oh. Well. Maybe you're right. Maybe they did just go down one elevator really fast, then go up the other one really fast, while we were putting out the fire." I noticed Bepi giving me that strange look again.

"Wait a minute," Rocky said. "Wait. No!" He stomped his foot. "No, that can't be right."

The whole group made it outside at about the same time. Barrett was notable by his absence, but Monokuma did not seem to care. He stood in the middle of the lawn, hopping up and down in fury. "What took so long!" he barked. "It's been almost a full five minutes!"

"Hey, your stupid elevators take forever, don't blame us," Rocky grunted.

"Are we really talking about the elevators in the dorm being fast?! What planet do we live on where that happens?"

"Right!" I agreed. "Good thinking, Rocky. Yes, it's not possible to go downstairs and back up so quickly. JP would have run into them."

"So who set the fire?!" Nicole asked. "And why?!"

I frowned. "I'm not sure," I said hesitantly, "but something Earl said a minute ago stands out to me. About trying to create confusion."

"Yes!" Earl exclaimed, holding a fist in front of his face dramatically. "Yes, the culprit knew they could impersonate the victim, so they wanted to give the impression he was alive long after he died!"

Ashley frowned. "That does make sense as a pattern. Class this morning, being seen by Katy, the fire, the receipt… all designed to make us believe he wasn't dead."

"But this still leaves us with nothing!" JP wailed.

"And your kind adviser is getting bored!" Monokuma spoke up.

"Gah!" Nicole slmmed her hand down on the lecturn. "So what do we do? Do we just... vote randomly for one of the three suspects?!"

"No," I said calmly. "Because we don't have nothing. In fact, we have a huge amount of information about this case. And Jane, deliberately or not, summed up the heart of this mystery a few minutes ago."

Jane blinked at me. "Remind us."

"You said the central question was, If he was killed in his room, how did the killer move his body? And we were right the first time. They couldn't have done it after dinner without being seen. They couldn't have done it during either of the guard shifts without being seen. They couldn't have done it before or during breakfast without being seen. And so that..."

My dramatic pause actually worked. "So that what?!" Emily shrieked.

"So that… leads us directly to the culprit."

There was pandemonium. But I had never felt calmer in my life. I was ready to say their name.

Author's note:

I hadn't planned to release this so soon, but I got excited about testing my mystery-writing skills. I learned a lot about making things tight from writing this; hopefully the whodunnits will just get better and better as the story goes on. I'd definitely appreciate any feedback anyone might have about dangling clues.

Thanks to everyone who's been offering speculations! Hopefully that'll only continue after this cliffhanger. I think the playing along is the fun part, so it's really gratifying to see people doing it here.

(Also, the killer turned out to be one of my favorite characters to write. Whoops.)