Everyone else gathered around, and we all stood around Saeko's body for a few silent seconds, no one quite sure where or how to begin.

"I suppose the first thing we should do is take a look at the Monokuma File," Hideki suggested, pulling out his E-Handbook. I obliged, also pulling out my own E-Handbook and looking at the Monokuma File.

I saw Saeko's full-body picture in the Monokuma File, grayed out with the word "DEAD" plastered over it. There was a large pink circle in her abdominal area, and a smaller one on the side of her head. Next to the picture read,

Monokuma File #2:
*The victim was Saeko Nura. The time of death is estimated around 3:10 a.m. The body was discovered outside the snow lodge. The cause of death was impalement through the stomach by a sharp, long object. Hours before death, it appears her head was struck by a heavy blunt object.

Sen scratched his chin and looked at Saeko's body, pulling out a pair of blue rubber gloves and putting them on his hands as he slightly pulled her body along the spear. There was a straw rope tied along the handle of the spear and around Saeko's body, keeping her suspended against the tree. "Hmm, just as I thought. It would take quite a bit of force to spear someone in the abdomen, have it come out the other side, and stick it through the bark of a tree," Sen muttered. He slid his hand along Saeko's torso, sticking his fingers into the wound.

Toko wretched, holding their stomach as their eyes widened. "I think I'm gonna be sick..."

"I was too late... if only I could have saved her..." Sen lamented.

"Anything you've learned, Doc?" Daquan asked him.

"The wound is overall bigger than the spear. This tells me that she was actually struck more than once, possibly in a different location than here," Sen informed us. I took the time to remember this information.

Yuki looked down at the snow beneath Saeko's body, which had been dyed pink with Saeko's blood. "There's somethin' real weird about this snow," She told me. Yuki rolled up a ball of snow in her hand, which turned to slush as she tried to ball it up. "See that? Even if it starts to heat up, regular snow doesn't do that. At least not that fast. There's somethin' real odd about that if you ask me,"

Rai immediately butted in. "Yeah, I can agree with that! Last night, I was making the weather chart for the next month, and last night was supposed to hail around this time. There wasn't supposed to be any snow,"

If it wasn't real snow, and it wasn't even supposed to snow, just what was going on?

"Something else I might add," Shiro began, clearing their throat. "It's actually not only possible, but also easy to create snow using liquid nitrogen and water. But I don't know who could have possibly had access to it, because I was in the chemistry lab until 10 p.m. and didn't see anyone go in,"

Hideki scratched his chin. "Damn, it doesn't really look like we're getting anywhere with this," He muttered to himself. "Kanon, you and I are gonna get to the bottom of this," He told me, grabbing onto my wrist.

"Hey!" I shrieked, trying to pull away from him. However, I could not free myself from his iron grip.

"Let go of her!" Masaki tried to come to my rescue, rushing in to get in between Hideki and me.

Hideki huffed and then let go of my wrist, glaring at Masaki. I breathed a sigh of relief, my wrist still aching.

"Fine. But I need Kanon for my investigation this time," Hideki grumbled. "Don't get in the way of this unless you want us all to be executed,"

Masaki shrugged. "Excuse me for not wanting my best friend to be hurt. Fine, you two can investigate this time, but I swear, if you hurt her or make her feel uncomfortable, you'll wish you hadn't," Masaki raised a fist to Hideki, who scoffed and turned away.

"An empty threat from an empty person, real endearing," He laughed. "Come on, Kanon, we've got lots to find out this time,"

I reluctantly went along with Hideki as he started asking various people about where they were during all this time.

"Alright, Toko, Daquan, you two seemed real close to Saeko. What are your accounts of everything happening?"

Toko glared at Hideki and gave a sigh. "Daquan and me attended the meeting, and Saeko left before it could start, sayin' she was meetin' up with someone. Daquan and I tried to ask who it was, but she wouldn't answer. After 'bout an hour, we tried knockin' on her door, but she wouldn't let us in,"

Daquan nodded. "Then that's when we heard her scream, around 10:30 p.m. She opened the door for us - me, Toko, Sen, and you. A few minutes later, Azizah and Kanon arrived,"

Hideki nodded. "Okay... Then where were you after she was attacked?"

"I went to bed, I was too tired after all that," Toko replied.

"I was hanging out with Kaemon all night," Daquan replied. I raised an eyebrow - how could anyone be bothered to hang out with him?!

Hideki scoffed. "That's an obvious lie, nobody would hang out with him,"

Kaemon rolled his eyes at Hideki's statement. "Like it or not, it's true. I can confirm it. He was trying to see if he could livestream the outside of Saeko's room,"

Daquan nodded. "Believe it or not, Kaemon actually tried to help me out with it. After a few hours, we finally got it to work-"

Suddenly, Monokuma appeared in front of us out of nowhere. "Hey now, who said you all could go and set up cameras of your own?! That's my thing!" He scolded Kaemon.

Kaemon shrugged his shoulders. "Not sure. You never told us that was one of the rules,"

Monokuma fumed at us, waving his arms around but unable to say anything intelligible. "Fine! But, you better not abuse this power, or there will be absolute hell to pay!"

Without saying anything else, Monokuma disappeared and left us alone again.

"So, Toko went to bed, and Daquan and Kaemon were in the game room... what did you guys see?" I asked them.

"Nothing. The two of us watched until four in the mornin', neither of us saw anything. After that, the two of us just headed to bed," Daquan accounted.

Hideki nodded, scratching his chin. "Kanon, you get all that?" He asked me.

"Uh, yeah," I replied.

"What about you, Kanon? Where were you during all this?" Hideki asked me.

"Well, I just remember being with Aiko and Rai. Saeko said she was meeting with somebody, but she had a really sensitive secret. So she wanted to talk with them in person about it," I told him.

Hideki nodded and gave a grin. "Actually... that's just what we needed,"

"Huh?" I asked him, trying to make sense of what was going on.

"Don't you get it? The person she met up with is the person whose secret she had, and that person is incredibly likely to also be her killer," Hideki informed me.

I nodded, thinking of what happened the night before. "So you, me, Masaki, Kenji, Tame, Ryo, and Yuki are out," I replied, remembering that all of them had their secrets revealed. "So that means it had to be someone whose wasn't."

Hideki nodded. "There we go! In fact, the easiest way of solving this one is to find out whose secret everybody had. Then we work backwards from there, and the one that's missing is the one Saeko had-"

Before Hideki could finish, Monokuma burst in again.

"Upupupu~! That sounds nice and easy and all, but for this investigation and trial, nobody will be allowed to say whose secret they had if nobody else knew about them yesterday! Otherwise, they wouldn't really be secrets, would they?" Monokuma told us.

"Shit... that's gonna make this harder," Hideki muttered.

I guess we had to solve this one the old-fashioned way then.

"Well, we should probably ask everybody else about where they were," I suggested. "We should also check out Saeko's room, and there's something awfully suspicious about the hallways as well," I told him.

"Yeah..." Hideki replied, wiping off his sunglasses. "It was all clean, like brand-new. Even though it was Kaemon's night to clean, and he said he wanted no part in cleaning,"

I nodded back at Hideki. "Yeah, yeah. And there's something else concerning me too. Toko and Daquan said that Saeko's room was locked, but after she got hurt, they were somehow able to come in,"

A smile spread across Hideki's face. "See, now we're getting somewhere,"

With all this in mind, the two of us continued asking people where they had been the previous night. The two of us approached Aiko and Rai, both of whom had been awfully quiet this whole time.

"You two, where were you this entire time?" Hideki asked them.

Aiko scratched her chin and gave a shrug. "I honestly don't remember," She replied, giving her signature imp laugh.

Hideki glared at her and raised his fists up. "If you don't give me an answer right away, I'll make you wish you did,"

"Hey!" I tugged on Hideki's arm, trying to stop him from using force on Aiko. "Just because you're an interrogator doesn't mean you can do whatever you want to people!"

Rai instantly spoke up. "We were doing the cleansing ritual! Aiko drew a magic circle in the slush by the hill, and the two of us waited in there while doing some weird latin chants all night!" He testified.

Hideki nodded. "Okay... And did you happen to see anybody else during this ritual?"

"Well... We invited Hikooki to go with us, and he stayed for a few minutes before leaving. But that gives Aiko and I an alibi for the night, and Hikooki an alibi until 9 p.m.," Rai informed us. "We also saw Guadalupe run past us at around 8 p.m. and head back inside the train around 9:30 p.m.,"

Hideki lowered his fists and cleared his throat. "Got it, no further questions," He replied to the Ultimate Meteorologist. Hideki then turned around to face Yuki and Guadalupe. "Alright, Yuki, your secret was revealed last night, but Guadalupe, you're still on the chopping block. Where were you last night?"

"Qué?" Guadalupe asked, tilting her head. "I was with Yuki most of the night, but she passed out again, so I went for a run. I saw Rai, Aiko, and Hikooki sitting in a circle when I passed by them, and I saw Utamuro, Amy-chan, and Tomoe in the lounge, and ran some laps up and down the hill. When I ran back to the train to get a drink of water, it was just Rai and Aiko,"

I nodded at what Guadalupe was saying, though this still didn't really make much sense to me. I looked at the path from the train all the way to Saeko's body, looking at all the footprints that lined the area. I tried looking for any footprints that would have pointed us in the right direction, such as any that went directly from the train to the tree, but none of them fit the criteria. In fact, if I had remembered correctly, there weren't any footprints from the train to the tree in the first place, besides Rai's.

"There's something that's bothering me," I told to Hideki. "Do you remember seeing any footprints from here to the train in the snow before we got here, besides Rai's?"

Hideki shook his head. "I don't recall that..." He replied, looking back at the spear again. "Kanon, look at this spear again," He told me as I inspected the spear once more. I saw a large handprint in the middle of the spear, with a splash of blood in the center. "See this? Somehow, the killer must have had to kill her close-up. The rope tied around her is further proof of this," He informed me.

I nodded once more, snapping a picture of the spear in Saeko's abdomen. "Anyway, I think we've investigated all there is to see out here," I said to Hideki. "Why don't we go check in the train and in Saeko's room?" I asked him.

"Good call," He replied. The two of us walked back into the train, looking at the hallway again. Once again, we noticed that there was no sign that anyone had been there at all; the carpet was clean and free of any litter or junk. "Yeah, there's no way Kaemon could have done this," Hideki muttered to me. "There's no doubt about it, the killer did it," He then looked through a trash can in the corner.

"What could possibly be in the trash can?" I asked him.

"There's bound to be garbage and whatnot in here from the night before," Hideki replied. "Hey Kanon, look at this," He told me as I looked into the trash can. There was nothing particularly of interest in there, besides a broken glass lamp.

"A lamp?" I asked him.

Hideki nodded. "Look above us," He pointed upward, and I looked up to see multiple small shelves lining the walls, each of them with lamps on them except for one in the center. "That's a damning piece of evidence right there,"

I nodded back. "Well, I don't think there's particularly much else to see here. Why don't we investigate Saeko's room?"

Hideki shook his head. "It's locked. I don't think we'll be able to enter-"

Right before Hideki could finish his thought, Monokuma burst into the hallway from out of nowhere again.

"Upupupu~! For this investigation, the victim's room will be unlocked for the time being! Feel free to investigate at your own discretion!" He told us.

"...Never mind then," Hideki mumbled as the two of us entered her room. While it looked mostly similar to last night, something about it seemed off. I couldn't tell exactly what, though.

"Hey, where y'all goin'?!" shouted Toko from behind us. I jumped at their voice as they entered the room.

"Beat it, cowboy," Hideki told them. "You'll just get in the way,"

"Oh yeah? What if I told y'all that this room is outta order?" Toko asked us.

"Huh?" Hideki asked. "What do you mean?"

Toko adjusted their glasses for a second and pointed at Saeko's display of anime figures. "These were more centered at first," Then they pointed at the old video game cartridges behind a glass display. "These were standing upright, now they're toppled over," Then finally picked up a gold coin on the ground. "And this was on the shelf,"

I nodded at Toko's statement. How was Saeko's room all messed up?

"Hey, look what I found," Hideki called out, pulling out an E-Handbook from underneath Saeko's bed. "It's Saeko's E-Handbook. There's got to be some significance to this,"

I wasn't sure exactly what was relevant about Saeko's E-Handbook, but I did know that our doors would only open with them.

"Somethin's botherin' me about her bed, too," Toko muttered before they flipped over their mattress. They shrieked as we saw a horrifying sight - a bloody hole in the center of the mattress.

"...Whoa..." Hideki exhaled, the three of us going silent.

I looked around the room for anything else which would be of note, but all that stood out was the large pink travel bag. Even that didn't look particularly odd except for the wheels being slightly wet.

"There's one last thing I wanted to bring up," Toko began. "See, when we came in here, Saeko said somethin'. She said, "He... He...". I dunno exactly what that means, but we gotta remember it. It might be a clue,"

"Well, I think that's it... even though it doesn't look like we covered much ground..." Hideki muttered. Just as Hideki finished that thought, the monitor in Saeko's room came on.

"Ahem. Investigation time is now over," Monokuma said on the screen. "Please meet me in the main room, and then the Class Trial shall begin!"

"Fuck, I can't say I quite know who did it yet," Hideki muttered. "But, I know I'll solve this one. Come on. I've got some leads already,"

The three of us headed into the main room, where we regrouped with the other 18 students still alive. A nervous silence befell all of us as the same walls from before enclosed around us, trapping us in an elevator once again.

"Did you and Hideki find anything?" Masaki asked me. "Did he hurt you?"

I shook my head. "I promise, I'm fine," I told him. "...I think we're closer to figuring this out, but I still don't have any clue who could have done this. We need to discuss it more,"

Masaki nodded back. "I believe in you, Kanon,"

After what felt like forever, all of us arrived at the trial room once more.

It was time for us to solve the murder of Saeko Nura, the Ultimate Collector.