Q: Tell me about your parents, please.
JM: They were wonderful. All they wanted was for me to do good in the world.
Q: I see.
JM: I'm afraid I don't understand your reaction, sir.
Q: My reactions are not the purpose of this interview.
JM: Of course, but if you tell me, I'll be able to give more insight. Something's caught your attention; I want to elaborate on it.
Q: You stated your parents wanted you to do good in the world. Looking at your past... I can't think of any way you can think they possibly succeeded.
JM: Oh. Yes, I understand. But you see, it's all relative. I did as much good as I was ever capable of doing. And for that, my parents were true saints, true heroes.

I couldn't decide what was worst to look at, so I took in all of it. Juliet's body swayed gently, her eyes looking at nothing. I had thought she could make her eyes go blank before, but it was nothing like this. I don't even know what this means, but she was somehow the most alive person I'd ever known. To see her like this was just incomprehensible.

But not as incomprehensible as the rest of her body. Her arm was bent unnaturally, and her left leg was swollen up below the knee. And the blood. I'd seen her covered in blood before. But the amount that streaked her body and was pooled underneath her... it felt she was somehow inside-out, like there was nothing left under her skin.

The rest of the room was no better. Lucina and Katy both had pleading, frantic eyes, and they struggled pathetically against their bounds. Seeing both of them so helpless and terrified was almost as horrific as the carnage.

And then there was Monokuma, leaving bloody footprints behind and crunching the glass on the floor as he paced, waving his paws erratically. "Calm down!" he shouted. "Everyone calm down! Listen to me! This is fine! We're fine! We can do this!"

No one calmed down. It was pandemonium, until it suddenly ended with a deafeningly loud report.

Monokuma held his shotgun, pointed up at the ceiling, the end smoking. Everything went still and silent... except for Juliet's voice, still ringing out of the speakers about "killing her." Monokuma waddled over to the computer on the main desk and whapped his paw against the keys. Juliet's voice stopped.

"You have found a dead body," Monokuma announced. "Everything may be going to hell, but we are not missing out on the investigation and trial! Justice is justice!"

He swiveled on Lucina and Katy, swinging his shotgun to point at them. They both braced and squeezed their eyes shut, but he didn't fire.

"However!" he continued. "Thanks to the actions of certain students, we'll have to handle things a little differently! It's unavoidable that you get a little more information than usual, but that's fine! We're flexible! We're adjusting!"

"First things first!" he snapped. "Miss Mountebank's death had at least one witness, not counting myself!" He glared at his captives. "They have currently been restrained to keep from this whole thing devolving into chaos, but after an initial investigation period, you will have the opportunity to interview both Miss Sorenson and Miss Thorson! Independently."

FACT 1: WITNESSES.
Juliet's death had at least one surviving witness.

"Wait... 'been restrained?'" Jane asked. "'Been restrained' by whom?"

"By me, of course!" the bear shouted. "I don't like interfering in crime scenes, but we have to have some kind of organization to this!" He glared down at them with obvious disdain. "I also bandaged and dressed their cuts, because I will not have anyone bleeding all over my beautiful courtoom! But rest assured, that's all I did! Everything else was all you idiots!"

"Furthermore!" Monokuma's voice was strained, like he was legitimately under stress. He was truly an amazing A.I. "Just in case it wasn't obvious, I'll go ahead and tell you that the killer of Miss Mountebank was in this room already when you all entered."

FACT 2: MONOKUMA'S STATEMENT.
Monokuma is the one who tied up and gagged Lucina and Katy; he also bandaged and dressed any cuts they had. He didn't interfere in any other part of the crime scene. Monokuma told us that Juliet's killer was in the rare books room when we came in.

"Now!" he shouted officially. "Investigate! Hurry! I'm going to take these witnesses somewhere they can't cause any more trouble while you're doing that!" He strode over to Lucina and grabbed the rope tied around her ankles. He pulled, straining backwards, and she didn't move a centimeter.

After a few moments of straining, he walked to her head and tried to grab her under the shoulders to lift her up, having no success at all.

Eventually, he just grunted in frustration. "Mr. Diaz!"

Rodrigo jumped in surprise, probably brought out of a horror-trance for the first time since entering the room. "Ah... what?!"

"You will move the witnesses to a safe place!" Monokuma commanded, pointing at him. "It's not like you're going to be useful in an investigation, anyway!"

He looked around blankly, then nodded. "Yes... yes, if they must be moved, I can do so safely."

He hesitantly walked over and bent down over Lucina. "Friend Lucina, may I carry you?" Lucina looked at him like he was crazy for a moment, but then she sighed and nodded. He looked to Katy and asked the same question, and she too nodded (looking much angrier than Lucina).

His manner was shy and embarrassed, but he still picked Lucina up with one arm and draped her over his shoulder. Then he picked up Katy with his other arm. He stood up awkwardly, both sets of their legs hanging down from hiss shoulders. "If... if you feel discomfort, please bend your knees," he said, looking straight forward.

"Wait a sec," Rocky interrupted, glaring at Monokuma. "How'd you even tie them up in the first place?"

"Shotguns are very effective at making people hold still!" Monokuma replied, sounding almost proud. He stepped in front of Rodrigo, pointing. "Forward!" He marched out of the room, Rodrigo following.

Both Lucina and Katy looked right back at me as he toted them down the hallway. My heart was beating so fast, I thought I was dying. It caused a burst of shame, but I had to: I walked away, to the side, where they couldn't see me anymore.

Jane, Rocky, and I stood in that terrible room, silent and still. I don't think any of us knew what to do or think.

Very luckily, after only a few seconds, our tablets buzzed. Blank and cold, I pulled mine out and beeped it on.

BODY ANNOUNCEMENT

The victim is Juliet Mountebank. Time of death was 10:50 am.

The victim has suffered numerous injuries. Among them:

Extensive bruising on left hip, both legs, and neck.

Broken left ulna.

Broken right tibia.

Extensive, deep cuts covering entire body.

Crushed larynx.

The victim's cause of death:

Blood loss.

"Umm," Rocky said, scratching his head in confusion. "I'm... not sure what some of these words mean."

"The ulna is in the arm," Jane replied, surprisingly not condescendingly. "Tibia is in the leg. The larynx is your windpipe."

I glanced at my tablet's clock. "She died about 15 minutes ago. That'd be... maybe eight or nine minutes before we came here."

FACT 3: BODY REPORT.
Juliet had a broken leg, a broken arm, a crushed larynx, and extensive cuts all over her body. She died of blood loss under ten minutes before we arrived on the scene.

"Christ," Rocky muttered. "Um, I call not examining the body."

"Fine," I said, looking over with sympathy. "Take a look around the room, will you? And be careful of all the glass."

Jane and I stepped closer to Juliet. We did not want to get too close, because there was a very large pool of blood underneath her. Trails of blood led down her body from cuts all over.

Sucking it up, I stepped forward to examine the pool of blood. Besides being large and fairly wet, there were a few chunks of glass in it.

Jane took in the scene. "Oh dear," she said.

"Yup," I replied. I finally looked directly at Juliet's body. I blinked as I noticed something. "Huh... she's actually really close to the floor." I pointed at her toes, which almost reached the pool of blood under her. "Just... an inch up, or so."

"Ugh, use the metric system like a civilized person," Jane muttered, but then she pointed up to the other nooses. "They're all different heights. Whoever hung her up here chose one where she'd almost be able to reach the floor."

FACT 4: NOOSE.
Juliet's feet dangled about an inch off the floor. The nooses were all different heights.

"How does hanging work?" I asked. "How's it usually kill you, and how long does it take?"

Jane shrugged. "A sudden drop ideally breaks the neck, causing instant death. If it's not an instant death, then it's strangulation. It can take several minutes." She gestured up to Juliet's disgustingly disfigured, blue face. "The victims often look like that."

FACT 5: JULIET'S DEATH.
It can take several minutes to die from behind hanged.

I nodded, then glanced at her. "I'm a little worried it didn't even occur to me you wouldn't know the answer to that."

"Hmmph." She pointed over to Juliet's feet. "Have you noticed that? Look at her soles."

Juliet was barefoot, and there were rivers of blood running down her legs and feet (the blood seemed to collect into trails and roll down her body in thick lines). But I looked closer at her feet, and I saw a thin layer of yellow paint, mostly dried by this point.

FACT 6: JULIET'S BODY.
Juliet was barefoot, and her soles had yellow paint on them.

Looking at her feet, I noticed a gash on the front of her leg, just above her left ankle. It looked different from the other cuts, which were thin and controlled. This was jagged ... messy.

"Oh... hm." Jane, examining the cut, distastefully turned Juliet's body around so we were facing the front. "Look, darling." I didn't see it at first, because of all the blood, but eventually I noticed that there was that same yellow paint on the front of both of her legs.

"Wait, is that..." I forced myself to touch the corpse, running my finger over her skin. "What are those things?" Poking at one of the odd objects protruding from Juliet's skin, I realized they were wooden splinters.

FACT 6: JULIET'S BODY (revised).
Juliet was barefoot, and her soles had yellow paint on them. She also had yellow paint on the front of both of her legs. There was a gash on the front of her leg by the ankle which looks different than the other cuts. Her body also had wooden splinters in it.

We looked over the rest of Juliet's body, but we didn't find anything we didn't already know. She was just absolutely covered with cuts, some quite deep.

"Okay," I said, "and apparently she bled to death. How long does that take?"

"It depends on the nature of the cuts," Jane answered. "It can happen quite quickly, or it can be very slow." She examined Juliet's body more closely. "Interesting..." she mused. "Cuts all over her body, and they're quite precise. Whoever did this avoided the major veins and arteries. And they directed their attention at some... quite sensitive areas." She glanced over. "A long, painful death."

FACT 5: JULIET'S DEATH (revised).
It takes several minutes to die from behind hanged. It probably took Juliet a long time to bleed to death, and many of the cuts would be particularly painful. The cuts were all even and precise and were all over her body.

"Um, dudes?" Rocky called out. "Uh, dunno if you're done with... that... but I found some shit when you're ready?"

I was perhaps too grateful for the excuse to not have to examine the body anymore. I stood and we walked over to Rocky. "Yeah?"

"Uh... okay." He first waved his arms at the window-wall, which was smashed. "There's this, first, obviously."

There was some glass still in the pane, a good amount hanging from the top like stalactites, and a couple of inches of sharp spears sticking up along the bottom. It wasn't even; there were places where it was lower or higher, but basically there was just the big hole in the middle.

I headed over to the window and glanced over the edge. We were about one story up, and a handful of pieces of glass sparkled up from the ground floor. But it was nothing compared to the glass all over the floor here.

FACT 7: WINDOW.
The big, floor-to-ceiling window in the rare books room was smashed. All the glass was on the floor of the rare books room except for some jagged pieces around the edges.

"Um, there's also just... like, chaos everywhere," Rocky said. He indicated the overturned chairs and tables, the tin cans strewn over Juliet's bedding area, and a dent in the wall where it looked like a foot or an elbow hit it. "It looks a lot like a fight. I've... seen the results of big fights before."

FACT 8: STATE OF RARE BOOKS ROOM.
The rare books room was damaged and messy, as if there had been a fight there.

"Lovely," Jane said, rolling her eyes. "Is there anything not completely obvious you'd like to show us?"

He cringed slightly but nodded. "Uh, I found these. I'm not sure if Juliet had them in here already, but they seemed weird to me." He pointed to two softballs, lying apart from one another.

"I... don't think she had these here before," I remarked. "She could have bought them at the student stores, but I don't remember seeing them."

FACT 9: SOFTBALLS.
There were two softballs lying around the rare books room. I hadn't seen them when I had been in here before.

"Uh, one more thing," Rocky said. He walked over to the wide open door. "A couple of things, here."

I leaned over to examine the side of the door that was facing me. One particular clue was very obvious, to the point that I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed it before: a large butcher knife was stuck into the door.

I looked closer; it was almost certainly the same one Juliet had shown me earlier. I could see a thin, dark bloodstain running down the very sharp edge of the blade. And...

I carefully rubbed my finger on the handle. Yes... it looked like there was some yellow paint on there, mostly dry.

FACT 10: BUTCHER'S KNIFE.
Juliet's knife was stuck into the exterior of the door to the rare books room. It had a thin, dry bloodstain on the blade and yellow paint on the handle.

As I examined it, I noticed something odd on the door itself. it was hard to see against the oak wood, but there was that same yellow paint smeared in a couple of places, a little fainter than on Juliet's legs.

FACT 11: DOOR TO RARE BOOKS ROOM.
The outside of the door had yellow paint smeared on it.

"And this," Rocky said, closing the door partway, showing us the interior side. A key stuck out of the lock, and both the key and the handle had blood on them.

FACT 11: DOOR TO RARE BOOKS ROOM (revised).
The outside of the door had yellow paint smeared on it. The other side of the door had the key still sticking out of the lock, with blood on both the key and the door handle.

I nodded to Rocky. "Nice work."

He smiled gratefully, but Jane cut in. "Well, did you happen to notice, uh, those?" she asked with a tilt of her head downward.

I looked down. Next to the door was a pair of familiar-looking, stiletto boots. One of them had a broken heel. "These are Katy's, right?" Jane nodded grimly.

"Ohhh," Rocky said. "Okay, I get it now. That's what this was!" He held up a dark stick; it was the missing stiletto heel. "It was over by the desk. Wondered what it was."

FACT 12: BOOTS.
Katy's boots were in the rare books room, near the door. One of them had a broken-off heel, which was found across the room, near the desk.

"All right," I said. "I want to search the downstairs. Was there anything else?"

"Yeah, just this." Rocky walked over to the desk with the computer and audio equipment, but he paused. "Well..."

Jane shook her head dismissively, but I just looked at him as seriously as I could. "Yeah?"

"I mean..." He scratched the back of his head for a moment, then threw his hands up in defeat. "It's nothing."

"No... no, really, what is it?" I asked, leaning forward.

He sighed. "I don't even know. It's just... something seems out of place. Like... I dunno. Something just out in the open feels weird."

Jane started to say something. I shushed her. "Okay," I said as helpfully as I could. "Let's just take a second and look, all right?"

Jane made no secret of her skepticism, but we all were indeed silent as we scanned over the room. It took a few seconds before I noticed it. "Yeah," I said. " We've been looking at little details, but... the pattern of this blood and the glass isn't right, somehow."

Frowning, Jane took a step forward. "Is it this?" she asked, indicating a particular spot. "There's blood here. But the rest of it is splattered out from her body or pooled under her. This is different." She touched it softly. "Bleh, the blood's sticky and thick."

"Yeah..." I agreed. "Yes." I leaned down and looked at the area in question, too. "And the glass is weird, too." The shards were all bloody, but kind of clumped in a way it didn't seem similar to the way the rest of the shards of glass were spread. "Be careful with your fingers," I chided Jane, who just raised an eyebrow.

FACT 13: GLASS AND BLOOD ON FLOOR.
There was a spot on the floor near the desk where the blood and glass shards seemed different from the rest.

Rocky, thankfully ignored it and laughed nervously. "It's probably nothing! I just... y'know."

"Indeed," Jane replied, standing up. "Good work. What were you saying about this computer?"

"Oh!" Rocky ran over and sat. "I only had a chance to look for a second, but I think there's some shit here."

We walked over and looked over his shoulder; he pointed at a window with some programming code stuff I didn't understand. "Looks like the weird recording we heard when we came in... and the email she sent out... were on a timer. Went off automatically after she set it."

Jane scowled down at him. "You understand this?"

"Sure!" he replied. "This isn't so different from how I make my beats."

"Uh, we can't connect to the internet on this thing, can we?" I asked

"Oh!" Rocky clicked around. Nothing loaded. "Um... no. Some kind of internet network, but we can't get outside."

"Damn. Okay." I stood back up to my full height and sighed. "Rocky, could you try to find anything else that might be useful on there while we go search around?"

"Hell yeah!" Rocky enthused. " I get to be useful! Awesome!"

"Thanks." I paused. "Um, one more thing. Juliet had some book she was carrying around. It was like a diary a kid would have, pink and brown. If you find it, could you let me know?"

"Sure!" He paused. "Um, as long as I don't have to look at the dead body. I'm gonna just not look at it and pretend it isn't here."

"Pretty reasonable." I nodded to Jane and we headed out the door.

LIBRARY: MAIN ROOM

We decided to start our search in the main lobby area, right where the stairs exited. I was grateful for the chance to delay having to look at that fallen bookcase.

The most obvious clue here were the two parallel streaks of yellow paint, each about three inches wide, snaking from the bookcase to the stairs we had just come down. We had followed these lines (and a few scattered yellow footprints) through the hallway from the rare books room and down the stairs, but they got notably fuller and darker as we got to the center of the room.

Jane gave a single snicker. "It's like a highway," she remarked. "No passing."

I nodded. "They're pretty even except where those smears are." I pointed to two places where the lines were smeared. "It looks like someone made this with their feet." I glanced over at her. "Did you or either of the guys make this when we came in?"

"No, we weren't coming from that direction, she answered. "Hm, but it does look like someone running, doesn't it? Not very carefully, if they stepped right in that hideous color." Jane was right; it looked like the footstep of someone running headlong who didn't care they were stepping in something slippery. "And it angles out only slightly, so it looks like they were running in the same direction as the lines."

"It looks like everything gets less faint the further we get from the stairs," I observed. "And..." I looked closer. I think one of these is different from the other. See? That one has, like... dark brown color marbling through it. See?." I stood up, confused.

FACT 14: YELLOW PAINT IN MAIN ROOM.
Two parallel yellow lines are on the floor in the main room, between the fallen bookcase and the stairs to the rare books room. They get fainter the closer they are to the stairs. One of the lines has dark brown mixed in with it. There are smeared footprints in a couple of places, like someone running in the same direction as the lines.

Leaving the lines behind for now, I glanced up at the window, shattered and gaping. "How high up would you say it is?" I asked.

"Hmm, maybe... three and a half meters?" I looked at her blankly and she glared. "Ten or eleven feet, you neanderthal."

FACT 7: WINDOW (revised).
The big, floor-to-ceiling window in the rare books room was smashed, and glass was all over the floor. It was about ten or eleven feet off the ground.

Looking up, I found myself distracted by the memory of Juliet looking down upon me from that window like some kind of empress. I remembered what Bepi said when Ashley died, "I really just thought she was immortal."

"Look here," Jane's voice called, startling me. She was kneeling, looking down at the floor underneath the window. I got closer and saw what she was looking at: there was piece of glass there with blood on it, and next to it, a narrow slit in the wooden floor, maybe an inch long. Jane rubbed her fingers across it. "Interesting, it's fairly deep. It looks like... something was planted here? Or thrust into the floor? Hm."

I examined the glass. "This isn't too big, but it looks like it made a nasty cut in someone." I scanned the floor nearby. "More blood... a trail. Heading from here to straight to the library maze. Something happened here, and then a person who was bleeding went off in that direction.

FACT 15: GLASS AND FISSURE.
There was an, ugly piece of glass, covered in blood, in the main room under the window. Next to it, there was a small but deep slit, like something had been planted into the floor. There was a small blood trail leading from here to the stacks.

I glanced around at the bookcase and at the room, and I sighed. "Um, I'm trying to think of how to explain this to Rodrigo and Rocky, and it seems hard. Hm."

Jane raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"Hold on a second!" I ran off to the main entrance room, where I'd seen a deserted check-out desk. As I hoped, I found some stray paper and a couple of different-colored pens, and then I quickly ran back to Jane. Fortunately, it also gave me another minute to steel myself to deal with this whole thing.

"I already have the feeling this yellow paint thing is going to be confusing," I explained. "So, I'll draw diagrams for the guys." I sketched out a quick diagram of the room, and I showed it to Jane. She agreed with the basic details, but she added, "You're scale is pretty fucked up, though." I decided that was the closest I was going to get to a compliment.

[FOR SAYA'S DRAWING: see the author's profile]

I had run out of excuses to not go examine the fallen bookcase, but I felt myself tensing up at the very thought. Jane, perhaps noticing my uncertainty, put her hand softly on my forearm. "Are you..." she coughed. "Um. All." She coughed again. "Right?"

I blinked, surprised, and looked at her. "What?"

"Well. Darling. In the current situation, with Lucina. It would be understandable if you were upset. I, myself, of course, would be fine in your shoes, but I know some people have harder times with things."

I still stared at her blankly. "Lucina?"

"Well... yes." She seemed surprised by my surprise. "She does have quite the motive, does she not? I don't know everything, but it's clear she was horribly abused by her parents to make her silent. And... she's seen a video of Juliet, evil, manipulative supergenius, talking to who I can only assume was Lucina's father... about how girls should be silent. And immediately Juliet ends up dead."

I opened my mouth but found I couldn't say anything. It wasn't like this hadn't occurred to me, but I had done my very best to not think about it. "Katy knew about the DVD," I replied. "And she has the whole, 'sacrifice for pure love; thing. If she thought Lucina was going to commit murder, she might do it first to save her."

Jane frowned skeptically. "I suppose that's... possible."

"I think..." I said eventually, "I think this is not the time to talk about this. In the investigation, we should just take in the facts, and only think about the bigger picture later."

Jane pulled her hand away and nodded. "Very well. But. For what it's worth. Juliet was a vile person and the world is better with her dead."

I couldn't even begin to think about that kind of thing, so I just gestured to Jane to follow me and walked over to the entrance to the stacks. There was... a lot going on here.

The bookcase lay there, right at the start of the hallway into the stacks. Partly covered by the wooden bookcase, there was also a large puddle of yellow paint, getting sticky but still pretty wet. The two yellow lines emerged straight out of the puddle, one of them smeared by a single handprint. The books from the bookcase were strewn all around.

FACT 16: BOOKCASE AND YELLOW PAINT.
There was a large paint puddle right at the entrance to the stacks. It was partly covered by the collapsed, wooden bookcase. The two yellow lines go out one side into the main room, with a single handprint smearing one of them next to the puddle.

There was also a very odd thing that looked very out-of-place: a pink hand-mirror, a crack running down the middle, sitting on the floor next to the upright bookcase.

FACT 17: HAND MIRROR.
There was a pink hand mirror next to the bookcase.

"Well, this sucks," Jane commented.

I froze. "Um. I'm not liking that. What'd you find?" I walked a few feet over to the side, where she was kneeling over four glass containers, all with transparent liquid in them, completely indistinguishable from one another visually. This was seeming unpleasantly familiar..

"Yes, that sucks, I have to agree," I said.

"I smelled these two," Jane said, indicating the two on the left. "It was indeed Raindrops and Lollipop, or whatever ridiculous name that imbecile gave to his explosives." She picked up the next bottle and sniffed the liquid before pulling her face back and gagging. "Agh!"

"What?" I exclaimed, alarmed.

"Gah..." She set the glass down and scrunched up her nose. "It's fine, I was just not expecting it. That is not one of Barrett's explosives. That's very clearly paint thinner."

Confused, I quickly took a sniff of all three liquids myself. Yes, three of them were Barrett's explosives, and the fourth was paint thinner. I noticed, with some dread, that all four containers were more than half empty.

FACT 17: GLASS CONTAINERS.
There were four containers near the entrance to the stacks, containing sugar, spice, everything nice, and paint thinner. Sugar, spice, and everything nice are inert on their own but violently explosive when all three are combined.

"Juliet said she'd collected some of these chemicals," I remarked. "Let's... just be very careful about what we smell, okay?"

Jane nodded. I nudged the bookcase with my foot, and to my surprise, it moved. It wasn't very heavy (especially compared to the other one), but I guess with the books in it, it would still be a lot. "Help me look under that?"

Jane looked down at the puddle, then she looked over at the bookshelf, then she looked at me. "No," she said.

"...What?" I asked, perplexed. "There might be something important under there."

She just looked back at the yellow paint, then back up to me. Her eyes got huge and watery, and she frowned adorably. "But... paint."

"Ugggh, come on, you baby," I snapped, walking over to the bookshelf. When I looked back, she was primly removing her coat and gloves.

When she joined me, she looked very annoyed. "If there's nothing under there, I'll vote for you in the trial just to be mean."

We squatted and got our fingers under the bookshelf, and we managed to tilt it upwards some. I noted again that it wasn't very heavy, and I leaned down to get a better look.

The first thing I noticed was that much of the bookcase and many of the books were charred black. Also, two of the bottom shelves were gone, like they'd been completely destroyed... this probably contributed to the bookcase being lighter than expected.

FACT 18: BOOKSHELF.
A lot of the books and part of the bookcase were burned and charred. It looked like two of the shelves near the bottom of the bookcase had been obliterated.

"You could have lifted this stupid thing yourself," Jane grunted.

"No, I'm too sinewy," I replied, eliciting a glare. We dropped the bookcase back onto the floor. Jane hopped back to keep any yellow paint from spattering onto her dress, mostly succeeding.

"Ugh." Jane immediately went over to the paint thinner and used it to rinse the yellow off her hands. "Uh, be careful with that?" I called to her. "We have no way of knowing what would happen if we got paint thinner mixed in with any of those chemicals?"

"I can't hear you, I'm not wearing my gloves!" Jane cut me off, not turning around. I wondered if she was being bratty or if there actually was something about her body where she couldn't hear with her gloves off.

I remained next to the bookshelf, pointedly ignoring her. It's lucky I did that, because I noticed something else: a piece of string was lying on the floor in front of the bookcase.

I followed the string in the direction of the upright bookcase, and I found it went around the corner and ended in a full spool.. I then looked for the other end, and it extended for several feet across the paint puddle before ending in a nub. The thread was pretty thick and strong, and it was mostly white, but a big part in-between the two ends was yellow, and the broken-off end was black.

FACT 19: STRING.
A string lay in front of the fallen bookcase, going around the corner and ending in a full spool. the other end was just a black nub.

Jane appeared next to me, fully dressed. "I found the conductor's shoes," she said casually.

I dropped the string. "What? Where?"

"Right there," she pointed, and yes, two converse all-stars sat next to a nearby trash can, white socks stuffed in them. "Those are hers, right?"

"Well... she wears shoes like that," I said, hesitantly.

FACT 20: LUCINA'S SHOES.
Shoes and socks like the ones Lucina wears were near the fallen bookcase.

Trying not to think of the implications for that, I drew out a diagram of the entrance to the stacks. I almost didn't ask Jane's feedback this time, but I decided, in the interest of accuracy, it was best to do so. Luckily, she agreed without any snide comments.

[FOR SAYA'S DRAWING: see the author's profile]

LIBRARY: STACKS

We had to crawl on our hands and knees across the bookshelf, but it wasn't too difficult. "Well, I was concerned about searching this place, since it's such a maze," I remarked. "But... I guess I shouldn't have been worried."

Clear, starkly yellow footprints led down the hall. "It looks like.. two different people," I mused. "See? This one has a longer stride. Hmm, and some of their footprints have that same brown that was out in the main room, remember?"

"I agree," Jane nodded. "They both go in the same direction, at least."

FACT 21: FOOTPRINTS.
Two sets of footprints led down the hallway into the stacks. Both people were barefoot, and the one with a slightly longer stride had smears of a brown color mixed in some of their footprints. Both sets of footprints were even and wide, as if the people were running.

We headed down the hallway slowly, following the seemingly random twists and turns of the footprints. The shelves that made up the walls of the hallway were a couple of feet taller than either of us, and the whole place just felt oppressive. But luckily, it wasn't long before we noticed something else: two more pairs of footprints going the other way, getting less faint as we went.

"Ah," Jane mused. "So, these are the footprints going in, and these are the same people coming back out. The yellow paint fades off as they go."

I nodded. "Yeah, probably. It looks like the same two sets of footprints."

FACT 21: FOOTPRINTS (revised).
Two sets of footprints led down the hallway into the stacks. Both people were barefoot, and the one with a slightly longer stride had smears of a brown color mixed in some of their footprints. Both sets of footprints were even and wide, as if the people were running. The same two sets of footprints came back the same way, but the yellow paint faded off before they reached the exit.

It was eerie, following footprints. It felt like chasing ghosts. After a few more turns, we found another surprise. One of the sets of footprints heading out of the stacks ended suddenly.

"It's brownfoot," I remarked, referring to the person with the longer stride and the dark color mixed in with their yellow paint. Luckily, Jane knew what I meant.

I looked around, scratching my head in confusion. There was no sign of anything strange. One of the bookcases nearby was empty, which was a little unusual, but otherwise it was just a completely typical section of the stacks.

FACT 22: FOOTPRINTS SUDDEN START:
"Brownfoot's" exiting footprints suddenly appear out of nowhere, for no clear reason. Other than the fact that one of the nearby bookcases is empty, there is nothing unusual about the place where it happens.

Jane rubbed her chin as she thought for a moment. "Let me check something," she announced. She walked to a nearby hallway, a path the footprints didn't take, searching the floor, but she stopped suddenly.

"Um, darling, could you come here a moment?" she called, not moving a muscle.

"Uh... sure?" I followed her, confused, but when I got right behind her I froze, too.

"Is it my imagination?" she asked.

"Nope," I replied.

I could clearly smell ginger... the distinctive odor of one of Barrett's chemicals. And underneath that, I think I caught a fainter whiff of vanilla, which represented another of his chemicals.

"Let's just back up slowly," I suggested. We carefully backed out of the hall and back to where the footprints were.

"It's lucky I have such a remarkable sense of smell," Jane remarked. "It's likely all three chemicals are coated on the floor on that path. If we'd gotten all three on our soles... boom."

I glanced down at the footprints. "If some of these paths are coated with Barrett's chemicals, it's amazing whoever this is didn't run right into them. They're zig-zagging around the maze like crazy, so they must've been really lucky to avoid getting blown up."

FACT 23: CHEMICALS IN THE STACKS.
Some of the paths in the stacks have been coated with all three of Barrett's chemicals and would be very dangerous to run down. The footprints appear to entirely avoid these paths.

I don't know why, but that was sort of chilling. "Let's keep going," I said.

But there wasn't much farther to go. The footprints made a right turn, and then, a few steps later, "brownfoot's" just stopped.

The other set of footprints kept going another two steps past that and then also stopped, but the reason there was more clear. There was a string (the same kind as from the spool outside, it seemed) tied between the bookshelves at shin-height, and that was the end of the running footprints: the entering ones stopped there and the exiting ones started there. A couple of feet past the string, there were a few footprints pointing in various directions.

"Uh, okay." I say, trying to wrap my head around this. "So... this person, brownfoot, just disappears in thin air. And the other person ran right into this tripwire, then got up and started running back the other way."

"Indeed," Jane agreed, kneeling down by the string. "It's just a string, no mechanism or anything. Nonetheless, if you were running full-speed, you'd take quite a spill. You'd probably be stunned for at least a few minutes."

FACT 24: FOOTPRINTS' SUDDEN END.
"Brownfoot's" footprints stop suddenly after rounding a corner. The other footprints carry on a couple of more steps, before the person apparently tripped over a tripwire. Then they seem to have started running back the other way.

"Well, good job, Dr. Watson, we wasted our time," Jane remarked. "Two people ran into these hallways, one of them tripped, and then they ran back out. Surely the murder is as good as solved.'

I decided to ignore her, and I pulled out my pens and paper. I drew out a quick sketch of this area.

[FOR SAYA'S DRAWING: see the author's profile]

With nothing else apparent to find, we followed the footprints back to the main room.

LIBRARY: MAIN ROOM

We had to crawl back over the bookcase to get out, and the paint puddle extended far enough out to make exiting difficult. We probably could have jumped, but it was too precarious to stand up, so there was just no way to get out without yellowing at least one of our hands or feet. Jane was very vocal about her dislike of this situation.

Eventually, we got out, my head starting to hurt, but I quickly heard Monokuma's voice blasting out over the speakers. "There you are! The witnesses are ready to be interviewed now! Please proceed to the periodicals room near the entrance!"

I hadn't gotten all ice-cold this investigation, I realized. I wasn't overwhelmed by my feelings, but I hadn't turned them off. But the thought of talking to Katy and Lucina put me over the edge. I took a deep breath, nodded to Jane, and headed off.

LIBRARY: PERIODICALS ROOM

All four of them were waiting for me. Monokuma held his shotgun casually. Rodrigo had positioned himself between the bear and the girls, but the expression on his face didn't look strong. Katy and Lucina were both seated against the wall, ankles and wrists tied.

But Katy wasn't gagged any more. As soon as she saw me, she screeched out, "Saya! I did it! I killed her! You have to..."

Like lightning, Monokuma zipped over to her shoving the barrel of the gun into her face. "And what did I just say, Miss Thorson?!" he barked. "That was your one warning! If either of you break the rules again, I will end it all right here!"

FACT 25: KATY'S CONFESSION.
Katy admitted to murdering Juliet.

He glared over at me, then up at Rodrigo. "Think I won't? Think I'd hesitate for a second about writing off this train wreck of a semester and just hoping the next class is better?"

Katy went silent, but she wasn't looking at the gun, she was looking at me, pleadingly. I noticed that she was more beat-up than I'd thought, with a badly bloody nose.

"He has not hurt them; all of their injuries are the same as when we arrived," Rodrigo said. "But he has been... quite unhinged in his demeanor. I fear he is telling the truth."

"You're damn right I am, you creatures of chaos!" the bear snapped, waving his gun around. "Now, here's how this is going to work. You, detectives." He pointed right at me and Jane. "You will be allowed to ask three questions of each of our two witnesses. They may lie, of course! BUT. If they attempt to provide any information that is NOT an answer to the question, I will blow their brains out right then and there. I don't want to kill them right after bandaging up all their cuts, but I'll do it! Is anyone confused about this?!"

He gave us about five full seconds to respond. Those silent five seconds were pretty awful.

"All right, I think Miss Thorson needs to cool off, so we'll start with Miss Sorenson! Mr. Diaz!" he whirled on Rodrigo. "Please take Miss Thorson outside. If you attempt to untie her or speak to her, I'll kill you both. Remember, I'm always watching!"

Rodrigo stared at him for a moment. It took me a moment, but I realized he looked angry... I'm not sure I'd ever seen that before. But, he gently picked up Katy and carried her out of the room.

When they were gone, Monokuma picked up a pen and paper and set them down next to Lucina. Then, he nodded to me and Jane. "All right, proceed. And NO, you can't ask stupid GENERAL questions like 'What happened tonight.' The whole point of this is to make it so the execution isn't a foregone conclusion!"

I glanced at Jane, but she seemed perfectly happy to let me take the lead. I tried not to look at Lucina, but I couldn't help myself. She was barefoot, and her feet were almost completely bandaged, but her clothes looked undamaged... though covered in blood like the rest of her, of course. Looking closer, I noticed some small bandages on her arms.

I took a deep breath, trying not to get distracted by the desperation on Lucina's face. I knew "how" and "why" questions would provide more information than others, but it was overwhelming to think of exactly what to ask.

"All right," I said eventually. I looked up at Lucina as warmly as I could. "Why did Katy confess to Juliet's murder just now?"

Lucina had a grateful expression, but it quickly became an annoyed expression as she attempted to pick up the pen and write with it when her wrists were both bound. But eventually she wrote out an ugly, To try to protect me, the real killer. I badgered her into giving me my DVD, so she knew I had a reason to do it.

I had been very afraid of pretty much exactly that response.

FACT 26: LUCINA'S CONFESSION.
Lucina admitted to murdering Juliet.

"That's one!" Monokuma bellowed.

I took a deep breath, and then let out a little chuckle. "Damn it, this is tense."

Lucina gave me an empathic, soft look and I immediately fell in love with her again. Luckily, Jane walked up behind me. "Would you like me to ask one, darling?"

I nodded, grateful. Jane strode forward, examining Lucina carefully. "How did Juliet get each of her injuries?"

Lucina started to write, but Monokuma banged the butt of his shotgun against the floor. "No! Too general!"

"Grph." Jane gathered herself and tried again. "How did you kill Juliet?"

Lucina wrote the answer even faster than usual; she must have expected this question. I lifted her up and hung her in the noose. I set it so she was standing on a single book, which wasn't enough to kill her, but it would hurt. I had found a knife in there earlier . I used it to cut her. I made it last as long as I could. I wish it had lasted longer. When she looked almost unconscious, I kicked the book out from under her, so she'd hang, too. It was all me. Katy never had anything to do with it.

"That's two!"

FACT 26: LUCINA'S CONFESSION (revised).
Lucina admitted to murdering Juliet. She says she took the knife from Juliet's office earlier, and then later she hanged Juliet and used the knife to cut her.

The pieces were not fitting together, and I noticed something else as Lucina was writing. Besides her feet, she was not completely unhurt: she was favoring her shoulder.

FACT 27: WITNESSES' CONDITION:
Lucina's feet are bandaged, and she is favoring her shoulder. She has a couple of bandages on her arms. Otherwise, she appears unhurt.

I tried to ask about the context of the rest of what I'd seen. "Why did you go into the stacks?"

She hesitated with this one. I was chasing Juliet, she wrote eventually. She ran off, and I followed her footprints. She got away from me, but I managed to catch her with the trap I'd set from the string and the explosives.

FACT 26. LUCINA'S TESTIMONY.
Lucina says she chased Juliet into the stacks. Juliet escaped, but Lucina managed to catch her by setting a trap.

"That's three!" Monokuma shouted. He very abruptly fired his gun at the ceiling, which startled me so much, I fell down.

Rodrigo ran into the room. "What happened? Is everyone safe?!"

Monokuma turned to him, nodding politely. "Ah, Mr. Diaz! Please be so kind as to bring Miss Sorenson outside and bring Miss Thorson in here?"

Baffled, with my ears still ringing, I dumbly watched Rodrigo pick up Lucina and leave, then return with Katy. As he left, I gaped at Monnokuma. "Are you just going to keep firing that thing?"

"If it'll cut through the chaos of your weak, postmodern identity politics, of course I will!" he snapped.

I kept gaping, but Katy's voice surprised me. "It's all right, Saya. I dough thick he'll shoot you."

I blinked, realizing how awful it would be to laugh at what her stopped-up nose did to her speech, given the circumstances. But luckily, that brought me out of my shock; I glanced back at Jane and reached up my hand; she rolled her eyes but pulled me up to my feet.

"All right," I said, regarding her carefully. She was clearly in much worse shape than Lucina, though there was just as much blood on her clothes and body. She looked like she was in pain in various places from the way she was shifting around. Her bare feet were bandaged just like Lucina's, and she also had small bandages on her arms. Notably, though, she had a longer bandage on the side of her neck.

FACT 27: WITNESSES' CONDITION (revised):
Lucina's feet are bandaged, and she is favoring her shoulder. Otherwise, she appears unhurt. Katy also has bandages on her feet and small ones on her arms, but she also has a bloody nose, pain in various places in her body, and a longer bandage on the side of her neck.

"Let's start with the obvious one," I said, as kindly as I could. "How did you kill Juliet?"

"Um." Katy wouldn't meet my eyes, and her voice was ragged. "I cut her. A lot. For a log time, over ad over, with her own knife. I put her up in the doose, so it'd be eveeh worse than what she did to Emily. I watted her to be straggled and cut at the same time."

"That's one!"

FACT 25: KATY'S CONFESSION (revised).
Katy admitted to murdering Juliet. Her story is very similar to Lucina's.

Jane was not as polite as I was, and apparently couldn't resist chortling at how ridiculous Katy sounded.

I raised an eyebrow and tried to ignore her. "How did Lucina get all that blood on her if she wasn't involved?"

"Modokuma," Katy answered, still looking down. "Wheh he appeared, he threw us both dow in the blood to tie us up."

"That's two!" Monokuma bellowed.

I grimaced at Monokuma. "That's not fair," I argued. "The answer to that was something you did. That shouldn't count."

"My game, my rules!" he replied happily. "But, as a gesture of good will, I'll go ahead and tell you her answer to that question was true. Right after the door opened, bam! I knocked 'em down and tied 'em up at gunpoint! I felt like a cowboy. Pu hu hu!"

FACT 28. BLOOD ON KATY AND LUCINA.
Katy and Lucina both got bloody from being thrown on the floor by Monokuma when he tied them up.

"Grf." His pride was abhorrent... though I did have a useful clue from knowing at least some of the blood on both of them came from that... and probably the cuts on their arms came from the glass on the floor.

I shook my head to recenter, and looked back at Katy. Unlike Lucina, who was nearly frantic, Katy just looked miserable and nauseated. I felt my heart go out to her, despite my best efforts. "Hey," I said. "Everything is okay. We'll figure this out. And you're with friends."

She finally looked up and made eye contact; tear streams in the blood on her cheeks. She nodded.

I'd already decided the last question to ask. "Why did you go into the stacks?"

"Uh." She looked away again, but then looked back. "I did't. Juliet was chasing Lucina. I stayed outside ad set a trap ad waited."

FACT 29: KATY'S TESTIMONY.
Katy says that Juliet chased Lucina into the stacks, and she herself set a trap and waited for Juliet to come back.

"Okay, that's it!" Monnokuma yelped. "And that's the investigation! Please head outside, and..."

"Hey, hold up!" Rocky's voice interrupted from the loudspeaker. "I got one more thing to show everybody!"

"Gah!" Monnokuma jumped in surprise. "Don't spy on us, you creep! And too bad, time's up!"

"Uh, well, if you want to make the trial harder, I think you probably want people to see this?"

Monokuma paused, then waved his paws around violently. "Fine! But hurry! Hurry hurry!"

I glanced at Jane, and we headed to the door. I deliberately did not glance at Katy on my way.

LIBRARY: MAIN ROOM

Rodrigo declined to come with us, saying he preferred to stay to protect and offer support to Katy and Lucina. I was grateful, but again I shivered a bit about how much trust was being put in me.

As we quickly walked through to the rare books room, I nudged Jane. "How strong would you say Katy and Lucina are?"

Jane frowned in thought. "Both pretty strong, I'd say. Physically, of course, not mentally."

I ignored the insult, trying to stay focused. "But stronger than Juliet, probably?"

"Yesss, probably," she replied. "Lucina seems strong, and she'd have good leverage from being so tall. Katy is a little shorter than Juliet, but she's got lots of muscle. Does yoga, or something." She held up a finger. "But I wouldn't be surprised if Juliet had some sort of psychotic fighting power. Amorality gets you quite far, I should know."

FACT 30. STRENGTH.
Both Katy and Lucina are probably stronger than Juliet was, but Juliet's nature might plausibly overcome that disadvantage.

LIBRARY: RARE BOOKS ROOM

When we arrived, Rocky waved us over to the computer. "Two things," he said quickly. He pointed at the monitor. "There were two new files... both videos. This one here..." He pointed at one labeled MY COMPOSITION, "...is password-locked and I can't open it. But it was created earlier today, at around 10:44."

I blinked. "That's about five minutes before Juliet died," I remarked.

FACT 31: 'MY COMPOSITION' VIDEO.
There was an unopenable video on the rare books computer, which was created just before Juliet died.

"Okay, yeah, but this is the big one," Rocky said quickly. "This one; I can open it. It's from 10:20, and... well, just watch it yourself."

He moved the arrow over to the icon. The file was called CONFESSION. He clicked it.

Juliet popped up on the screen, sitting primly at the desk. Despite her calm, official demeanor, her hair was mussed and she was breathing hard. "Thank you for watching this," she said, sounding just slightly agitated. "This was not a suicide. It was murder."

She looked up and around the room firmly, as if searching for a hidden listening device. "Do you hear me? This is not a suicide. It is a murder. It has to be, because look." She pointed off the screen. "I made six nooses, one for each the students except me. It had to be, because I will not let myself commit suicide."

FACT 32: 'CONFESSION' VIDEO.
About a half-hour before she died, Juliet recorded a video of herself where she repeatedly asserted she was not committing suicide.

"I made traps in the bookshelves," she continued, getting more aroused and upset. "I tied tripwires... they won't kill anyone, because I'll want to do that myself. I spread the explosives on some of the floors... also probably not enough to be deadly. I hope.

"Oh! And I put the paint on the floor, so I'd be able to track anyone through the maze. She'll be helpless. With all these tools at my disposal, she'll be helpless. I can defend myself." She held up the butcher's knife, a small stream of blood on the blade. "I can..."

She looked down to her side. Annoyed, she set the knife down on the desk and whipped her hand down as fast as a cobra. There was the distinctive sound of a palm striking a face, and an offscreen voice shrieked and moaned, gutteral and agonized and impossible to identify.

Juliet looked back up at the screen and started to speak again, but she held up her hand and glanced at it; there was blood on her palm. She disgustedly wiped her hand on her blouse, then looked back down at the groaning person. "Oh, shut up, it's not even broken."

FACT 31: 'CONFESSION' VIDEO (revised).
About a half-hour before she died, Juliet recorded a video of herself where she repeatedly asserted she was not committing suicide. She admitted to setting traps and leaving the paint in the stacks. There was someone injured in the room with her, and she hit them at one point, drawing blood.

She ran her hands through her hair in an apparent attempt to calm herself down, and she looked back at the screen. "I could never put myself in a position to die," she asserted. "Never, never, never. I could never handicap myself, do you hear me? That would be suicide, and I can't commit suicide. It was a murder."

She had tears in her eyes at this point. "If it was suicide, then I would like to die for love. Or for revenge. Either one would be something I deserve. But... but it doesn't matter, because this wasn't a suicide. This..."

The sound of shattering glass cut her off, and she turned in surprise to her side. Glass shattered again, and Juliet closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She reached over onto the desk and picked up a pink hand-mirror... the same one we'd found down by the fallen bookcase. She looked at herself, preening and fluffing her hair in the mirror. "This is it," she murmured. "You look beautiful."

FACT 16: HAND MIRROR (revised).
There was a pink hand mirror next to the bookcase. Juliet had it with her when her confession video ended.

Still holding on to the mirror, she reached over with her other hand and picked the knife up off the desk. Then she looked back at the computer, apparently turning the recording off. There was a tiny look of relief on her face when she did it.

"Ugh," Jane grunted. "Monstrous person. What did she even mean, this wasn't a suicide?"

"I don't know," I said, suddenly exhausted. "But... she's told me she's tried to kill herself a lot in the past, but she never lets herself go through with it. Who knows if it's even true."

"If it means anything, I checked some of the cameras in here, and it looks like she did set a bunch of tripwires through the stacks."

I nodded. "Yeah, we saw one. And we smelled the chemicals, too. I don't think she was lying about those. But..." Rocky looked up at me curiously and I sighed. "Whatever happened at the entrance to the stacks, by that paint puddle... that one was different. That one involved string and the chemicals, and Juliet's traps in the stacks just used one or the other."

FACT 31: 'CONFESSION' VIDEO (revised).
About a half-hour before she died, Juliet recorded a video of herself where she repeatedly asserted she was not committing suicide. She admitted to setting traps and leaving the paint in the stacks. There was someone injured in the room with her, and she hit them at one point, drawing blood. The video ended with two sounds of glass shattering.

Rocky looked up at us hopefully "Hey, can we get out of the dead body room now, please?"

"Yeah." I clapped him on the shoulder. "Thanks for your help." I looked at Jane. "You, too."

Rocky paused. "Sorry we're not Bepi," he said, very abruptly.

I whipped my head up at him in surprise. "...what?"

He and Jane shared an uncomfortable look, and he continued, "Just... Bepi was good at this shit. You and him were a team. Like, we're trying to help. Roddy, too! But... we're not as good as him."

"Don't say 'not as good as,'" Jane snapped. "Because it's simply factually untrue, in my case. But... different. In... perhaps a less helpful way."

"He wasn't very helpful last time, when he was trying to cover up his murder," I said, as unemotionally as I could.

"Uh... he kinda was, actually," Rocky replied. "Like, it didn't make sense, but he was." There was a bit of a pause, then he looked right at me. "Do you, um... know who did it?"

"No," I answered simply, then I realized something. "Oh, did you find that diary?"

"Oh, yeah!" Rocky ran over to the desk and grabbed it. "I looked at it, but it didn't seem to mean anything to me. I..."

"Hey!" Monokuma's voice was piercing. "You're done! Get to the trial room! Now now now!"

Sharing a tired, overwhelmed look, the three of us headed off towards the main quad, where the elevator down to the trial room awaited.

Juliet, evil, confounding Juliet... was dead. I didn't believe in the death penalty even before coming to murder-college, but even the small glimpses I had of her crimes shook the foundation of that particular moral value. If anyone deserved to die, she did. If anyone didn't deserve to die, it was whoever killed her. This unfair, vicious place was going to act out its cruelty again.

As we walked, Rocky looked over and said, "I hope it's not Luce. ...Is that bad of me?"

I had no idea what to say.

As usual, the murder should be solvable at this point.

I have a survey for people to make their guesses, provide feedback, and answer a few other questions. I strongly encourage anyone interested in how the story's going to fill it out! Sometimes a little thing like filling out a survey can make a big difference.

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