I'm alive, guys! I've been pretty busy lately. But during that time, I read some great stories that boosted me in my creative slump. I hope that you enjoy this chapter guys!
Nove and Zhen belongs to FireDusk
Nikhil belongs to Nikhilbhavani
Akari belongs to me
I hope that you enjoy this chapter! Please leave me a review!
Junko´s body was cold. Her hands covered her face in a futile attempt to save her life. Her bloodied face, once full of attitude, was forever frozen in a state of shock.
"A body has been discovered!"
Akari had to swallow the the bile that was rising in her throat. Makoto's screams in horror alerted the rest of the students to the trio's location. They quickly began to pile into the room and one by one, each student got to see the grizzly scene. Kyouko was the last student to join the group surrounding the model's body.
No one wanted to do anything. Except for Kyouko, who studied the room in detail. Her keen eyes scanned the environment. After seeing everything in range, she closed her eyes and spoke.
"We need to investigate the crime scene." Her voice cut through the silence. "Accident or not, we need to know what happened here."
"That's right, my mysterious student!" Monokuma's voice filled the room once more through the school speakers. "Accident or not, you need to get the full story of certain events! Who knows what will happen if you don't!" Its tone left an unspoken threat in the air. No one wanted to get on the bear's bad side.
"I updated the ElectroIDs with the rules about class trials and investigation! Happy hunting, dear students!" The announcement promptly turned off, leaving the students in shock.
The reality of the situation hit as the silence gripped each student. Junko Enoshima, the SHSL model, is dead. There was one less student then there was yesterday. Someone actually died in this hellish school. An Ultimate was taken away from the world, and the rest of the world may not even know what happened.
"So… don't we have to investigate now?" Nikhil asked the silent collective. He didn't want to incriminate anyone, but he knew what needed to be done.
"I mean the evidence is right here, right?" Zhen asked, messing with his cherry-colored hair.
"...Yeah. But Monokuma said that we have to investigate, after all." Leon responded. He crossed his arms and looked at his friends, raising an eyebrow. "But I don't see why we have to investigate. This was clearly a freak accident."
The lilac-haired teen cautiously walked towards the body. After kneeling down and giving its face a quick scan, she stood up.
"We may have reason to suspect foul play." Kyouko cautioned with a monotone. Her sharp eyes scanned the room, looking at all of her fellow classmates before turning once more to face the scene of the crime. One of her hands was firmly clenched, lightly shaking in place. Blood dripped from her palm, as if her nails dug into her gloves.
"We should break into groups and investigate certain areas of the school! It's the most efficient thing to do." Nove chimed in, slowly inching towards her friends. The others slowly nodded in agreement and broke into groups.
Akari wanted to group up with Touko, but the writer was busy ...following… Byakuya. And Junko… she was gone. Akari only had a single hope fragment to remember the model by. As the actress stared at her ElectroID, a timid voice caught her attention.
"You could join us…" Chihiro called out, outstretching her hand. "The more the merrier, right?" Slowly nodding her head, Akari joined the unexpected trio of Chihiro, Mondo, and Kiyotaka. As the rest of the students hastily left the storage room, the group of four stayed. Since the actress couldn't bear to see her one of the few people she could've called friend dead, she and Chihiro searched around the room while Mondo and Kiyotaka searched near the body.
"Something is wrong here." Kiyotaka stated, looking at the crime scene. His voice drew attention to the other students in the room. "If Junko died because of the storage cart falling on her, wouldn't there be more wounds on her hands?" Chihiro and Akari treaded towards the corpse and gasped in shock. What the moral compass said was true. There were only scratches on her surprisingly calloused hands. There weren't even scrapes. The most of the damage was on the right side of Junko's face. There was a small pool of blood underneath her head, but with the type of wound that she sustained, there should have been more.
"It looks like it really was murder…" Chihiro quietly responded. The following silence was disrupted by Mondo's shout from near the mess of boxes.
"Oi, guys! I think I found something interesting." The biker lifted up a thick-wrist sized lead pipe that was buried in the surrounding boxes. And on the pipe was one thick, bloody handprint towards one end of the pipe.
"The V in between the thumb and the forefinger is facing left." Mondo added. The V? Akari was confused about his terms, but she didn't want to say anything. Luckily she didn't have to speak up.
"You mean the check-like shape that your thumb and forefinger make?" Kiyotaka asked.
The biker nodded his head. "Yeah. The forefinger would have pointed right if the person who held this used their right hand."
"Meaning that the person holding this was left handed." The biker looked at the corpse once more. "And it couldn't have been Junko herself because her hands are too thin to match these prints."
"We shouldn't tell anyone about the print. At least not until the class trial." Akari spoke out. "The killer might create an alibi if they find out that we know about the pipe."
The group unanimously agreed as they continued to search for more clues. Due to their weak stomachs, Chihiro and Akari decided to split up and cover more space inside the storage room.
"Oh dear…" Chihiro's voice brought some in the spotlight.
The programmer stood near the entrance of the room. In the corner, underneath a messy display of boxes was a stain. It appeared that something spilled on the surface of the floor, and the bottom of the boxes were soaked in the liquid. The programmer attempted lifted up one of the boxes, but with no avail. With a deep breath, Akari grabbed the other end of the box and heaved. As the programmer suspected, a large pool of blood was underneath the soaked boxes. But the most telling piece of evidence wasn't the large amount of blood in the floor.
But rather the splotches of blood that trailed back to Junko's final resting place. The picture was clear to both the programmer and the actress. There was no doubt that this was a murder. And someone was trying to cover up their crime.
"We should go outside." Chihiro said, with tears forming in her eyes. "I don't want to be in here anymore." Akari couldn't agree more. Hand in hand, they left the storage room, keeping what they saw in the back of their heads. And it appeared that they weren't the only ones outside the crime scene.
The duo stumbled upon Zhen and Leon who were talking outside the storage room.
"I can't believe that someone is dead. Do you really believe that it was an accident?" Leon's eyes were full of worry as he spoke to his friend.
"It had to be an accident. I mean… it looks like an accident. So it has to be one." Zhen's tone was confident as he crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes, however, were also full of worry as if he didn't believe what he was saying. The rest of their conversation slowly faded as the duo walked away from the concerned group of teens.
Outside the storage room, Nikhil was in a dilemma. The answer was cloudy to him. Junko was most certainly dead. But he refused to permit the thought of one of his friends killing in his head. The animator couldn't believe that one of his fellow classmates would stoop as low as murder. As he wandered throughout the hallways, the teen could hear Yasuhiro gasp in shock. As the teen rushed inside the laundry he located the older teen, alive but in a… unique predicament.
"Nonononononono…. This was my best shirt… " Yashihiro circled around the room holding something in his hand.
Nikhil quietly approached the man.
"Who did this!"
He held out one of his yellow shirts. The shirt itself was wet and speckled with a red stain. A further inspection into the washing machine closest to the entrance showed that all of the clothes were stained with splotches of the mysterious red liquid.
"Someone must have a stain on their clothes when we used the washer!"
The animator looked at the older man with hesitation.
"It wasn't you, Yasuhiro? Weren't you on laundry duty last night?" Said teen quickly dropped the shirt and waved his hands, furiously denying the internal prosecution.
"Don't look at me like that! I didn't do it because I only collected laundry yesterday! Leon was supposed to wash and last night and Zhen was supposed to hang the clothes and hand it out later today!"
"Isn't there only one key for laundry? Wouldn't Leon have the key? And you're here right now because…?" The animator gave the man a look.
After the Clairvoyant was stared down for a few seconds, the older teen cracked under the pressure.
"Hey! I just wanted to get my clothes first! Don't judge me! I didn't want my clothes mixed in with everyone else's. The last thing I wanted was getting some panties that belong to someone else in my stack of clothes."
He continued. "And about the key, it's only used to start the cycles! Leon, Zhen, and I decided to place the key behind the calendar when we were finished. But when I got here, it was on top of a washing machine... Leon must have forgot to put it back before curfew."
Nikhil noticed something… peculiar with the stained clothes. Not all of the clothes were stained. In fact, only the clothes in the washing machine that was closest to the entrance were stained. And those clothes were still somewhat wet while the others were dry. One wash hours ago wouldn't have gotten them that wet.
The two checked the settings on that washing machine along with the others. While the other machines were set to heavy load, cold water, with the speed on hang dry, the one closest to the entrance had the dials were set to heavy load, warm water and heavy duty speed. It seemed like someone was in a hurry to clean their clothes. So much so that they didn't remember the settings to remove stains.
Nikhil left the laundry room with more evidence stating that Junko's death wasn't as accidental as they originally thought. As he walked towards his destination, he was lost in thought. He had an idea of who went to the laundry room last night, but the animator really didn't want to believe it.
Chihiro inched closer to Akari, attempting to feel some semblance of protection from an unseen threat.
"I just can't believe that someone was actually murdered…" The programmer's soft voice drew quiet as they approached their final destination. Akari quietly comforted the teenager. But the short moment of comfort was dashed as the Headmaster's voice rang through the school.
"It's time for the class trial! Meet up at the hallway near the A/V Room. The elevators will now be available for use! Attendance is mandatory, my dear students!" The abruptly ended, leaving the students to follow Monokuma's command.
And so, the remaining students met up outside the room. The air was full of tension as eyes shifted from side to side. It seemed like nobody wanted wanted to the deed. Only Kyouko was brave enough to push the elevator button. The elevator door slid open with a creak, revealing its interior to the survivors. The elevator seemed large enough to fit every student in one trip down. And Monokuma wouldn't kill them there, since it already gotten the death it desired.
One by one, each student entered the elevator. As the last student walked inside, the door slammed shut as the elevator slowly began its descent into the bellows of the Academy. As the elevator approached its destination, the same thought was present in everyone's minds.
Was Junko's death a murder?
Or was it just a freak accident?
In whatever case, the answer will be revealed in the class trial.