...
Begin Deadly Life
"I-I know this happened before, b-but still why did this happen?" Kokichi muttered.
Giving his true personality, it makes sense for him to react like this. Even disciples can feel fear when someone they never personally knew is killed.
Not that there was much of anything to be found. Even when the Monokubs deigned themselves to show up and provide the case's Monokubs File we had barely anything to work with. Ryoma's time of death wasn't even a full hour ago, but what caused it was still a mystery. So at least he hadn't drowned.
I didn't want to stop Kaito from his attempts at CPR. With a nod to himself, Kokichi decided to get the ball rolling by establishing what alibis he could outside of the virtual world.
"Y-You'll probably won't believe me, but I was the third person to see him like this. A-And I'm not saying this whole thing twice, O-OK?" He muttered. "K-Kaito bailed on me to go find Ryoma, so I went to check on Keebo and the rest of you. W-When I passed Ryoma's lab I heard Kaito yelling, but no one was in my sight when I checked. I-I figured his voice came from somewhere else and w-went to the bathroom to make sure. T-The announcement went off as soon as I saw K-Kaito and R-Ryoma in the pool from the window up there, s-so I'm guessing Kaito w-was the second person to see h-him. S-Since no one else was nearby and Kaito had just f-found him when I s-saw him. W-Which leaves one u-unknown witness."
"And it isn't either of the three of us." Kaede added. "Miyuji and Sharla were with me the entire time, we only left my lab because we heard the discovery announcement. So someone in the simulation saw what happened-"
"Don't you mean two people? I mean… if Kaito was a witness, and Kokichi was a witness, then that means one of them has to be the bloody killer, right?" Miyuji brought up, not looking up from Ryoma's body.
"I highly doubt that's the case here." I said. "Let's find Gonta and enter the Virtual World to search for anything linked to this murder and I'll ask Zellium if he knows anything."
After talking to Zellium and finding out that the Virtual World might be where the actual murder took place, we went back to the real world to investigate some more. There was even less evidence for this case than the last body had. We could only assume it occurred close to when Ryoma's attack happened since someone in the simulation must have played a role in his death too.
Which would be around nine, probably when Ryoma's "shift" ended. If Zellium was killed first it could be a lot earlier than that, as Tenko and Gonta wouldn't be sure when they lost track of him when exploring the woods. Angie insisted she and Kiyo had been together for most of the evening, talking in the church, so both seemed to support that they hadn't seen her. But any of those four could be lying.
Regardless, it was time for the trial to begin. Gonta, Tenko, Kiyo, and Angie were the most likely suspects. Tokuko mentioned that the number of us dead was becoming noticeable by how empty the elevator felt. As the elevator made it's way down to the trial room with all of us in it, I really couldn't help but think to myself as an image of Ryoma's body flashed in my mind.
With Ryoma's death, Kaito has lost all of his close friends except for Tokuko.
This can't be good for any of us... even the culprit must've felt bad.
Images of Gonta, Kiyo, Tenko, and Angie flashed in my mind.
The chances of a disciple being the said 'culprit' is really saying a lot about this case.
But still... I must keep fighting so Zellium can put his plan into action.
Images of everyone flashed in my mind once more.
He just needs a little bit more time, hopefully this trial is all it takes! I feel like there's more to this than any of us thought. Regardless if that's true. I have to expose the culprit behind this tragedy in this trial of truth and lies!