AN: And time for the first person to bite the dust! Eight chapters in. Thanks to all of you patiently following this story, and now for the action!
Day 15, 1013 Hours, Dorm Hall
John was moving down the hall, Atsuko assisting Ferris behind him as Paris began banging on doors trying to wake everyone she could. They passed the cafeteria where Rowland was eating quietly with Alexander, who was holding his head in his hands.
"Rowland, Alexander!" John barked, "Was there anything unusual in the kitchen?"
"No, why?" Rowland asked while Alexander gave a grunt.
"Someone's dead, help Paris wake the others then start looking for a body," was Ferris's response.
Passing the entrance hall Ferris motioned towards the library. As they ran down the hall, John ducked into the nurse's office since he moved faster than Ferris who was using Atsuko as a human crutch. The office was empty of people and he quickly moved after the shorter students. He caught up with them as they entered the library.
They would have to check the classrooms and bathrooms later, but the library would take the longest so they started there. As they ducked through the various shelves, John took note that Ferris was still wheezing and coughing up blood.
"You took the medicine right?" John asked him as they moved.
"Yes," he responded, looking at John with his greenish filmed eyes, "it's going to take a while for me to recover to normal, call it a week."
John nodded as Atsuko grunted as she stumbled. Ferris slowed as she regained her footing let John pull ahead.
The smell hit him.
Blood, a sharp iron scent, metallic and heavy in the air.
He stopped at the head of the aisle, only taking a note of the books knocked to the ground in the previous walkway. His focus was on the scene in the aisle that had contained the books on murder.
First thing of note was a shoe. The high heel was broken off and laid a few feet away from the body. Looking up he noted that one of the ankles was twisted and bruised. The dress was spattered with red, standing out against the green fabric. Her arms were crossed over her chest, probably after she died. There was no way she did it before she died.
Amelia's face was unrecognizable. Her nose had been broken, and while one eye seemed to have been crushed the other had popped free from the socket and was hanging across her head. The entire top of her skull was cracked open. John could see her brain. Blood was pooled around her skull and John could see bone fragments floating in the blood. Maybe some brain matter as well, as John looked closer.
John heard footsteps coming up from behind him which quickly changed trajectory before he heard the sounds of vomiting and Ferris talking to Atsuko, as the intercom came on.
"Bing, Bing, Bing, Bong! A body has been found! The investigation will begin and a trial will start shortly," said Monokuma's voice.
"YES!"
John jumped as the bear suddenly appeared next to him.
"You bastards finally killed someone! And I was getting so beary bored," the stuffed bear said.
"Stop it with the puns! Amelia's dead," John yelled at Monokuma.
"Yeah, I just said that genius. I'm just here to activate the all-important Monokuma File for you sniveling wimps, so get to poke your friend's corpse!" And with that Monokuma vanished.
John could feel his ID vibrating. He took it out and clicked the now active M. File button, where a document marked first victim was listed. Opening it, John was treated to a picture of Amelia's corpse, with wounds highlighted in pink of all things. The pink was concentrated around her head and marked around her ankle, although there was a splotch on her chest as well.
"Amelia Ivanov," John read, "discovered at 10:18 AM, died of blunt force trauma to the skull. She had bruising on her ankle and chest, and trace amounts of alcohol in her body."
"Love the part where it tells us something useful," Ferris said, "that was mainly useless except that it was the blunt force that killed her."
John nodded, noticing that Atsuko had left, probably to flag down the others as they showed up.
"We should start trying to figure things out right?" John asked Ferris, who shrugged and gestured to the scene.
"Ok," John said rolling his eyes, "her shoe probably came off when it broke, and it said that there was bruising on her chest so, I think she was shoved."
Ferris nodded, adding, "She probably hit that shelf," gesturing to the one that had all the books knocked off it.
"Yeah," John said, turning to look for what could have been used for a weapon, or something, as he heard footsteps begin to come their way. Noticing a space where a book had been, John estimated its size and looked at where they had guessed Amelia had fallen.
"They, the culprit, may have grabbed this book and hit her when she fell against the shelf," John said.
"Or they may have taken it to cover their tracks; we'll have to find the missing book for more information."
John turned to Alexander, noting that the while everyone was here, quite a few had opted out of looking at the body.
"Yeah well, after they hit her there, she probably fell to the ground, where they proceeded to hit her until her skull broke open," John finished, "I think we've covered what happened when she was attacked."
Alexander nodded before speaking out, "We should split up and look for evidence that can be used in the trial. We will also need someone to watch over the body to ensure that there is no tampering with it."
Rowland nodded and moved forward along with Chloe, taking opposite sides of the aisle. Louise and Billy moved forward to inspect the body while the rest of the group dispersed, Paris moving to John's side.
"I-I can't b-b-believe t-that A-A-Amelia is r-really d-d-de-dea-d-," Paris tried to say.
"Yeah, I'm having trouble believing it as well but we should go and help the others," John answered, "let's talk to Billy and Louise for now."
Paris nodded and moved with John into the aisle, gagging at the sight of Amelia's body. Rowland nodded to them as John moved over to where Billy was standing and Louise was sitting, inspecting Amelia's head.
"I will need more time," was all Louise said when asked for any details.
"I don't," Billy said, cutting in, "there isn't much to work with but, whoever did this regrets it, they wouldn't have bothered to pose the body if they didn't, but this doesn't match with the fact that the way they killed her was quite possibly one of the most horrible ways for them to do it, requiring time, I'm guessing our psycho was the culprit."
John nodded, before saying, "Any guesses?"
Billy looked both ways before saying, "Adam, Alexander, or Perdita, might as well throw myself in there for good measure right Rowland?"
John turned to face the brainiac who was watching them talk. Bidding goodbye to Billy and Louise, John walked up to the brainiac.
"Any ideas?" John asked.
"A psychotic break might mean they were sloppy. It is entirely possible that this entire case could be solved with one vital piece of evidence," was Rowland's response.
Leaving the aisle John turned to find Paris and Wilbur shifting through the books in the other aisle with Ferris assisting somewhat. Pausing a moment, John moved to the aisle next to it and began walking down the narrow space, looking at the books that matched the size of the one missing. He paused when he noticed a black book with the name Enoshima embroidered on it in silver. Pulling it out he found that it was covered in blood and had a few bone fragments embedded in the hard cover.
As he moved to bring the book back, John noticed something falling off the book. He looked down and saw a fingernail in the carpet. He forgot about it when Ferris called to him from the other aisle.
"Hey what are you doing over there?"
"I found the book they used," John called walking back around.
"Ach, look at the disrespect! How could anyone do that to a- wait, isn't that one of those stupid murder books? They should have buried it in a sealed container," Ferris said as John approached them.
Wilbur took the book from John before saying, "We'll search the rest of the library, Mary and Alexander have also started to look, talk to the others."
John paused, but nodded and gestured to Paris to come with, which the soccer player did after a second. As they left the others behind John could feel the tension from Paris grow. By the time they reached the front of the library, John was having trouble focusing with the girl fidgeting next to him.
"Is there something you want to talk about?" John asked her finally.
"Wha-no, no," Paris responded.
"Okay," John said.
The awkward silence fell again. John looked inside the nurse's office again, finding Atsuko and Jane inside. Jane was crying and Atsuko was doing her best to comfort her, handing her tissues from a box. John felt bad but decided that he would have to talk her. Moving inside with Paris trailing behind him he opened his mouth to speak when Atsuko cut him off sharply.
"I already asked her, Amelia helped her back to her room around the time the party broke up and asked if she wanted her to stay with her, Jane said no and she left."
John nodded, while Jane gave a teary confirmation, probably. He turned to Paris who was looking distressed. He paused for a moment before saying, "You want to stay here? I can proceed on my own if you're not feeling up to it."
Paris looked up from her thoughts and quickly shook her head stuttering out a response that she would stay with him. John nodded and left the office, Paris following after a moment. John saw Perdita in the entrance hall but she vanished before he could call out to her. He and Paris kept walking to the cafeteria where they found Barry, quietly eating a sandwich.
"H-how are y-you eating?" Paris asked indignantly.
"I really don't know anything about this kind of thing and the rest of you seem to have it covered. So, I'm just going to let you all solve this," the musician responded.
Paris sputtered and tried to form more words but John cut her off.
"Alright, we should look for more evidence before we run out of time."
He grabbed Paris's arm and dragged her out, a tough challenge considering she was digging her heels into the ground. John was fairly certain that she eventually relented and let him drag her out rather than him dragging her out on any strength of his own.
"We can't waste time on him, I still want to look at Amelia's room," John told her, still dragging her slightly.
"W-, Why?" Paris asked, pausing to take a breath.
"She might have something important hidden in there," John said, "We have to check."
They ran down the dorm hall, stopping when they reached Amelia's door. The digital name plate now displayed the words Game Over in a blood red font with the sprite version of Amelia centered under the words with injuries matching her corpse.
The door opened when John tried it, and he and Paris entered the dead actress's room. It was fairly well organized, posters of movies across the walls, some of them featuring Amelia some not. There was a desk with a computer on it and some paper, but when John checked them they both turned up nothing. John noticed there was a picture on the nightstand that featured Amelia and her siblings, wincing at the thought of them finding out their older sister was dead.
As John and Paris compared what they found in the room the intercom crackled to life, Monokuma's voice ringing throughout the school.
"Investigation time is over, hope you found everything! Report to the central hall on the double!"
"H-how l-long has it been?" Paris asked.
"About an hour," John responded as they began walking to the central hall.
"A-an hour? Really? T-that's all?"
"Well, if all of you was on the ball, minus the culprit of course, with fourteen people putting it to their full to solve this would be a breeze, except if two were just kind of standing around while another ran off to make sandwich and two wasted all that time crying and consoling."
John glared at Monokuma as the bear matched pace with them by Paris's side where he had appeared suddenly, Paris moving to the opposite side of John. They walked the rest of the way in silence, Monokuma making an occasional jab at them. As they reached the central hall, Adam, Perdita, Barry, Atsuko, and Jane were all there, Jane looking considerably better. Rowland, Chloe, Louise, and Billy all showed up shortly after John and Paris, while Ferris showed up alongside Mary with Wilbur and Alexander appearing last.
Shi-ru and Monokuma were standing next to a device, a giant winch that the penguin began to crank the minute everyone was inside the central hall. The center of the circle slowly came apart, revealing a seal emblazoned with Monokuma's face. The penguin grunted as them to get on the seal before he continued to crank, the seal slowly lowering into the ground.
No one spoke as the elevator was slowly lowered into a metal tube by Shi-ru, everyone focused on their own thoughts. John thought back to what he knew of Amelia, the motherly actress who had been charged with caring for her siblings. She had tried to care for the others as best she could, and one of them had cracked her skull open. Now, they needed to bring her killer to as close to justice as possible in this place.
Shi-ru switched levers, and slowly a door on the side of the tube opened. John followed the others into the courtroom that would decide their fate.