*Ding, dong, ding!*

"A BODY HAS BEEN DISCOVERED. IT CAN BE CONFIRMED THAT THIS IS THE RESULT OF MURDER. ALL STUDENTS, TO ATONE FOR THEIR COMPLICITY, MUST INVESTIGATE. THEN, AFTER A SUFFICIENT INVESTIGATION HAS BEEN CARRIED OUT, A TRIAL WILL BEGIN."

That announcement turned out to be superfluous. After all, it only played once everyone else had rushed over in response to Naoko's scream. The sight of Keiko's body made most of the students blanch, and some of them even refused to look, not wanting to see such a gruesome sight.

"Wha…?" That was all that Mareo was able to get out.

"WHAAAAAT?!" Mine shouted. "No! What?! How?! Why?!"

"Th-this…" Yasuo looked faint. "This is unbelievable. Someone actually killed someone?"

"Well," Bankei said, looking less shocked and more just grossed out, "it's clear that the people here really do have the capacity to kill. I suppose this can be considered the Cain and Abel of our group."

"Bankei, shut the hell up," Eryu said. "We need to focus. I know it's hard, but IMONO isn't giving us a choice."

"So now you want to do what IMONO wants, huh?" Haru asked, pointing his right finger at Eryu.

"What are you implying?" Eryu asked. "Do you think I did this?"

"Hey, hey," Haru said, holding up his hands defensively, "I'm not implying shit. But you're the one that said IMONO was full of shit, and we shouldn't listen to it."

"The rules say we'll all die if we don't find the killer, remember?" Takeshi pointed out. "I'm not looking forward to investigating, but I don't wanna die."

"IMONO isn't actually gonna kill us, though, will it?" Michio wondered aloud. "That never sounded right to me."

"I'd rather we not test our luck," Yori replied. "Naoko, are you up to investigating?" Yori looked over to Naoko, who was still in a bad state after seeing the body firsthand.

"I, um," Naoko got out, "I'm not sure. This is a big responsibility."

"You won't have to carry the burden all by yourself," Yori assured him. "After all, we're all technically suspects for the time being."

*Ding!*

Everyone got another notification. This one was labelled "IMONO Murder File" and Naoko, in a rush, opened it to see its contents. And, as it turned out, it contained information about the murder...but not as much as Naoko was hoping for.

"Victim: Keiko Fukuda. Found in the primary storage room. Death occurred shortly after the beginning of nighttime. Cause of death was blood loss caused by a sliced throat."

"Is that it?" Ishi said. "This info is lame as hell. We can see how she died, right?"

"It does tell us something, at least," Naoko pointed out. "It says here she died after nighttime. That narrows things down, doesn't it?"

"It does," Mareo agreed. "Still, even without this, I could tell death wasn't recent. Look at the blood." Mareo pointed to the pool of blood around Keiko. "It's dry."

"That's a good point," Yori commented. "It seems the best course of action would be to get everyone's alibis. Can we get some people on that?"

"I can ask for you, if you desire," Yasuo suggested. "As much as I'd like to help in other ways, I'm not the best with blood."

Yori nodded. "Good. Now, Mareo, as the medic, would you like to inspect the body?"

"Sure," Mareo replied. "I'm pretty used to blood. Not bodies, but definitely blood."

"Someone should investigate with you, correct?" Eryu pointed out. "If you were the killer, you could tamper with the evidence."

Naoko sighed. "I think I can help him."

Eryu nodded. "If you're up for it, then I'm more than happy to give you the okay."

Well, Naoko had a job to do, it seemed. He'd be playing an active role in the investigation, and that meant dealing with a dead body. Everyone else would be pitching in, if they could, and those that couldn't were advised not to wander off.

Back to Naoko, he and Mareo got closer to Keiko's body, crouching down to inspect it. Her body was face up on the floor, and that gave them a clear look at the wound that all the blood came from. The knife was still in her throat.

"Okay, let's see here," Mareo said, carefully removing the knife from her throat and inspecting it. "I wish we had some professional equipment. I wouldn't mind dusting this for prints."

"Is there anything we can tell from a cursory inspection?" Naoko asked.

"Maybe," Mareo replied. "This knife is of a decent size, and has a weight to match. Most likely a kitchen knife. As for the wound…" Mareo carefully inserted the blade back into the wound.

"Something you've noticed?" Naoko asked.

"The wound is…" Mareo seemed deep in thought. "Yeah, the wound isn't particularly deep, but it definitely seems like it was more than enough to lead to this amount of bleeding."

"Does that tell us anything about the killer?" Naoko wondered aloud.

"I don't know, but there's something else I've noticed that might," Mareo replied. "It looks like there's a bad bruise on her face, not to mention a broken nose. Do you think the killer might've hit her with something?"

Naoko thought about that. If she was struck by her attacker, it would've been with something blunt, but there wasn't anything he could see which stood out as a potential bludgeoning weapon. But why would the killer even have one? The murder weapon was a knife.

"I should investigate the room, now that I think about it," Naoko said. "There might be some clues that were left behind."

"Alright," Mareo replied. "Investigate anything that catches your eye."

Naoko stepped away from the body and began to look around the storage room. While he wanted to preserve the crime scene, he didn't want to miss anything, so he carefully inspected everything he could. There was nothing in the trash can, and there wasn't much on the floor, from what he saw on an initial look. The boxes were also all closed, but that didn't mean that they couldn't be related, so Naoko took a look at some of those.

Many of them were stacked on top of each other, so Naoko prioritized the few that weren't in a vertical stack and the ones that were at the top of the stacks. For the former, Naoko started looking through them. Unfortunately, there were mostly miscellaneous goods. Not much that could be used as a blunt weapon. Though one box caught Naoko's interest.

"This one…," Naoko began, crouching down to inspect an unstacked box near the end of the room. "...it's not touching the wall. Was it moved at some point?"

"Maybe," Yori replied. "You should open it up."

Naoko did just that, seeing that it was about half-empty. Its contents appeared to be a combination of paper sheets and writing implements.

"Oh," Naoko said. "Is this where we've been getting our paper?"

"Looks like it," Yori replied. "We've been using quite a bit, for reasons both you and I are aware of. Still, when I first found it, the box was filled to the brim. Have we really been emptying it out so quickly?"

"I guess so," Naoko said, shrugging. "You did give me a decent-sized stack of paper and pencils for my room. Hang on…"

Naoko had noticed something next to the box, in between the box and the one to the left of it. It was small and black, and Naoko had to pick it up to inspect it.

"Is this...a candy wrapper?" Naoko asked. "That's what it looks like." He fiddled with the wrapper in his hand, and noticed the wrapper seemed to have some writing on it. Apparently it was a brand of chocolate.

"Any idea what it was doing there?" Yori asked.

"I don't know. It might be nothing," Naoko admitted.

"Well, take note of it anyway," Mareo suggested. "If it's here, it might be a piece of the puzzle."

"I guess it's a good thing you have me to piece it together," Naoko joked.

At that point, Yasuo returned to the room. "I have everyone's alibis for last night," he said to the room's occupants.

"What did everyone tell you?" Yori asked.

"Well," Yasuo began, "Kimi, Bankei, Haru, Takeshi, and Sasa all claim to have been in their rooms when they heard that announcement. Mine was with Bankei for a while, and saw Bankei enter her room, and then left to practice her capoeira moves in the gym. Yori, you and Ishi were in the washroom together, correct?"

"Yes," Yori replied.

"Good. Naoko, both Michio and Haru have said that they saw you shortly before the announcement. As for everyone else, Hoshi, Eryu, Mariko, Mareo and I were in the cafeteria talking to one another. Hoshi, at some point, left to get something from his room, and Mareo supposedly went to use the bathroom."

"Oh yeah, I did," Mareo concurred. "I was in there when the announcement played."

"That's quite a lot to wrap my head around," Naoko admitted. "It sounds like everyone has an alibi of some kind. I need to think. Was there an opportunity anyone had to kill Keiko in the storage room?"

"Was there anyone in the hallway at the time?" Yori asked.

"Michio was there. He was taking out the trash. We talked briefly, before the announcement played."

"Ah. I myself saw Micio enter the cafeteria to take out the trash," Yasuo noted. "If I correctly recall, it was only a minute or two after the announcement."

"So, at the very least," Naoko reasoned, "he probably did go back to taking out the trash after we parted ways. It doesn't sound like he had enough time to commit murder then. Is there any way somebody could've slipped into this room without people noticing?"

"Not that I can see," Yori replied. "The only way into this room that I know of is the door."

"So, there's no secret passageways or anything. That's what you're saying," Mareo summarized. "I'll admit, I can't imagine anyone trying to go through the ventilation system or somesuch."

"Well, there is a vent in the room," Yori pointed out. "It looks like it would be difficult to move through, however."

"There's a vent in the room?" Naoko asked.

"Yes. You see there?" Yori pointed to the wall that could be seen behind the top of the boxes to the right of Keiko's body. There was, indeed, a vent. Of course, it was high up, and it wasn't very big, so Naoko didn't expect someone to actually use it to enter or exit the room.

"There isn't anything special about the vent, is there?" Yasuo inquired.

"I wouldn't say so," Yori said. "The only thing I've noticed it's used for is circulating the air and blowing hot air into the rooms every couple of hours."

"Let's hope those are the only things the vents are used for," Naoko commented. "I don't think we'd be able to do much if IMONO decided to poison our air with neurotoxins or something."

"Maybe that's what'll happen if we can't figure out who the killer is," Mareo suggested. "Another reason to redouble our investigative efforts. In that vein, I'd like to point out that Keiko's phone is missing. We've all been carrying them with us, correct?"

Everyone else in the room nodded.

"If that's so," Mareo continued, "the killer probably took it."

"Why would the killer take it?" Naoko wondered aloud.

"Probably because it had something incriminating to the killer," Yori suggested. "The secrets we were all given, remember? The only other possibility I can think of is that the killer wanted to try and incriminate whoever Keiko had information on."

"Both seem possible," Naoko agreed. "We'll have to be on the lookout for it. Maybe we should search people's rooms."

"We should be doing that no matter what, I feel," Mareo said. "Anyways, other than that, I should point out that we haven't spoken to each other much about the murder weapon. Do any of you recognize this?"

"Of course," Yori replied. "It's one of the knives that was in the kitchen. I remember those being extremely sharp. I just didn't think one would actually be used to murder."

"It being here would explain something interesting I noticed today," Yasuo said.

"What did you notice?" Naoko asked.

"Well, when I was making breakfast for everyone, I noticed that a knife was missing from the rack. I couldn't find it anywhere, either, which irked me."

"So it was taken from there at some point," Naoko surmised. "Good to know."

After another quick once-over of the room's contents, which didn't uncover anything new, they started checking around the facility. The students split up into groups to cover ground, with Naoko, Yori, and Yasuo checking the dorms. Everyone gave them permission, albeit reluctantly for some, to do so, and they used each of their fellows' room keys to look over all their rooms one at a time. Unfortunately, not much useful information was gleaned from most of them. Eventually, however, they started investigating Keiko's room, and really took their time doing so.

"What's this?" Naoko said, walking up to Keiko's desk. It looked like Keiko had a small yellow notebook in her room, alongside some other items from the storage room. Opening up the notebook, Naoko saw that there wasn't anything actually written inside, which disappointed him. Still, he noticed that there looked to be a page or two ripped out. Could she have been writing notes to people?

Everyone got together again not long after that. After an intensive search of the whole facility, not much in the way of clues was found. They had even checked what everyone had on their person, and they still couldn't find where Keiko's phone had gone. Suffice to say, Naoko wished that they had more to work with. Even so…

*Ding, dong, ding!*

"IT IS TIME TO BEGIN THE TRIAL. AS THE FLOOR BELOW IS CURRENTLY STILL UNDER RENOVATIONS, I MUST ASK THAT EVERYONE MEET IN THE GYM."

Well, the moment of truth was coming up. As much as they didn't want to, everyone had to acknowledge that one of them was a killer. It wasn't something that brought anyone comfort, but it was true, and they needed to figure out just who it was.

Entering the gymnasium, the students could see that fifteen black folding chairs had been set up in the middle of the room in a semicircle.

"EVERYONE, PLEASE TAKE A SEAT."

The fifteen remaining students did as they were told, taking a seat. An unorthodox approach for a trial, definitely, but it'd have to do.

Naoko took the sweet time he had to think about what had just happened. Keiko. She seemed like a legitimately good person. She wasn't perfect, but she had an air of optimism practically surrounding her, and it seemed like she really did want to help everyone through their troubles. Naoko couldn't believe that someone would ever want to kill her. Then again, he didn't really think a murder would occur among them at all. But that was what had happened, and they had to deal with it the only way that the bizarre and enigmatic IMONO would allow.

And that was through a trial.

A/N: Alright, well, there's the investigation out of the way. Maybe a tad short, I'll admit. There wasn't too much evidence to collect, at least in comparison to actual Danganronpa trials (individual cases in the games have like twenty pieces of evidence. Comparatively, I've created a list of all this case's evidence in my notes, and there's only about a dozen). If you're worried about future trials, don't be. I'm planning on having future cases be a bit more complicated.

Also, I'm uploading this the day before the day that I expect to get my AO3 account that I'm gonna use to reupload this to there. Hopefully, I'll be able to get on that soon!