Author's Note:

Another day, another chapter. Let's get on with the despair.

Gwen barely registered anything after that. She barely felt Cody and Owen rushing her away from the room. Barely heard the cries of confusion and fear from the others. Barely even reacted as Bridgette guessed that she was in shock.

But Izzy's slap…that she felt. She yelped, leaping to her feet. "Ow!"

Izzy laughed. "That was fun!"

"Just take some deep breaths," Bridgette advised. "What happened?"

"I'll tell you what happened!" Everyone turned to look at the sudden arrival of Monokuma. The bear was sitting at the far end of the table, snacking on a plate of salmon. "You kids have just witnessed your first murder!"

"Murder?!" Beth cried.

"Yep! Good old Trent just got offed!"

"Taylor's…dead?" Lindsay asked.

"You said it, kid!"

"Why'd you kill him, you damn bear?!" Cody growled.

"Moi?" Monokuma looked shocked (if a robot bear could look shocked). "No, no, no, I'm not the guilty culprit. The murderer is one of you!"

"One of us?!" Geoff exclaimed. "Brah, we're not killers. You're lying."

"Oh, I never lie about this. One of you drama queens decided to take their chances with graduation and went all Psycho Killer on Trent."

Gwen expected more protests to come from the others about how it was impossible that one of them had killed. But no one did. Slowly, she began to realize that she, like the others, had now fully understood the gravity of the situation they were.

Trent was dead. And one of them was his killer.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Alejandro spoke up. "But if one of us is the murderer, that person is free to go?"

Monokuma stared. And then he started to laugh, his red slashed eye glowing. "Oh, dear, stupid Al. You think it's really that easy? You can just kill someone and waltz on outta here? You're stupidly naive! Devilishly naive! HELLISHLY NAIVE! No, no, no, the real thing has just begun."

"The real thing?" Heather repeated. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Monokuma let out an annoyed sound. "Did anyone actually read the rules?"

"I did," Courtney spoke up.

"Surprising no one," Leshawna muttered under her breath.

"Let me put it in simple terms," Monokuma explained, sticking another whole salmon into his mouth. "To actually graduate from my school, yer need to not only commit murder, but also get away with it."

"Get away with it?" Harold repeated.

"Yep. You got to get away with the murder. It's got to be the perfect crime!"

"Do we even get a chance to solve the crime?" Heather asked.

"Of course!" Monokuma exclaimed. "What's a class trial without evidence and investigations?"

"So, what happens in this class trial?" Bridgette asked.

"What happens? You talk about the damn case!" Monokuma yelled. "And then you all get to vote on who you think the guilty party is."

"What's the point of a class trial?" Alejandro asked.

"If the guilty party is discovered, then he or she will be punished. However, if you finger the wrong person, then the murderer goes free and everyone else gets punished."

"Punished?" Harold repeated. "What's the punishment?"

"I'm glad you asked," Monokuma answered. His black side seemed to look even more sinister. "There's only one punishment here at Hope's Peak, and that's…good old-fashioned execution!"

Dead silence. All eyes were on Monokuma now—even the ones that hadn't really been paying attention, like Justin (who was too busy looking at his reflection in a spoon) and Katie and Sadie (who were too busy paying attention to Justin).

"What's…execution?" Lindsay dumbly asked.

Monokuma was taken aback at the girl's stupidity. "Execution is...execution. Ex-e-cution! Electric chair! Poison gas! Torn to shreds by a rabid tiger!" He raised a paw, extending claws. "So judge carefully, because all your lives are on the line!"

Eva slammed a fist on the table. "How is that fair?!" she growled.

"Beg pardon?"

"Why should I have to die if we all make the wrong choice on who killed Trent?! That's not fair!"

Monokuma shrugged. "Life aint fair."

"I've had enough of this!" Eva marched over to the bear. "Let us out right now or I'll tear that little head of yours off."

"Ooo, I'm quivering with fear." Monokuma dramatically shook his body. "But if you really want to get out of here…take your best shot."

Eva kicked Monokuma out of his chair and planted a foot on his oversized belly button. "You're done," she proclaimed.

Monokuma shook again. "Violence against the Headmaster is against the school rules!"

"Yeah, yeah, tell it to someone who cares," Eva growled.

"Eva, stop!" Courtney cried. "The rules state—"

"You've violated a school rule!" Monokuma cried. "Save me, spears of Gungnir!"

Without warning, several long, needlelike spears extended from the ground and the walls, skewering Eva all over her body. Her eyes went wide with shook. "Wh…what did you…" Blood gurgled out of her mouth as the spears retracted and she crumpled to the ground, the light dying from her eyes.

Several people screamed and backed away in fright from the horrifying scene. Sierra grabbed Cody and pulled him back; DJ had leaped into Leshawna's arms; Katie and Sadie were holding onto Justin's arms.

Monokuma got to his feet, casually wiping the blood from his muzzle. "Now I am painfully aware of the great power and meaning of a promise," he began, "I really wanted to keep a corpse from popping up for no good reason, ya know? But I guess you all needed to be taught a lesson, after all. But now you guys understand, right? Now you see just how serious I am... Defy me and you get shot full of holes, exploded, buried alive, disintegrated...et cetera. So if you don't want that to happen to you, you' best obey those school regulations!"

"You—you killed Ava!" Lindsay squeaked.

Monokuma waved her off. "It's no more remarkable than the inevitable demise of the entire human race. It's just as natural as the eventual end of the world itself. This isn't some superhero comic you all seem to love so much. So it's not like when you die, you didn't really die. This is reality! And you better start getting used to this, baby, because there's plenty more of this where this came from."

Monokuma looked over the remaining teens. "Now, if you're not going to cry about how unfair this is or beg in vain to be let out, why don't you start the investigation? After all, the trial's going to start soon."

"It's not like we need a trial," Heather spoke up. "We all know who did it."

"We do?" Beth asked.

Heather rolled her eyes. "Where was the body found? Oh, that's right…in Gwen's room." She turned her gaze to Gwen.

"Gwen's the killer."

Gwen avoided the others after that. It wasn't like she had much of a choice. She could see it in their eyes; they all thought that she was guilty.

But she wasn't! She didn't kill Trent. Why would she have done it? But none of that mattered now; everyone was already convinced otherwise.

But if they tried to vote to convict her…everyone would die.

Gwen stopped and slammed her fist against the wall. "Damnit!" There had to be some way to convince them that she wasn't responsible for anything. But how?

"Gwen?"

Gwen turned around. "What?" she asked. "Come to accuse me of murdering my friend too?"

"What? No!" Cody insisted. "You really think everyone believes you did it?"

"Well—"

"Gwen, if you want to figure out who killed Trent, we have to look for clues. Because if we don't find out who actually killed him, then we're all screwed."

Gwen hesitated still.

"Look, I get it. Seeing Trent dead like that wasn't great. Hell, I still can't believe someone would want to kill him. But I know you didn't do it."

"How can you be sure?" Gwen asked.

"Because Trent told us he was going to see you," Cody explained. "The fact that he died in your room with you is obviously a frame job; someone must've seen him go in and decided that this was an easy way to frame you. But the only way we'll find out who is if we search your room."

Gwen hesitated. But Cody had a point. If there were any clues to Trent's death…they were in her room.

"Well, look who it is," Courtney snarled slightly as Gwen and Cody arrived. "The murderer."

"Just ignore her, girl," Leshawna advised.

"Uh…how'd you get in here?" Gwen asked.

"Monokuma let us in to investigate the crime scene," Geoff explained. "Kind of hard to look at a dead body, though; I can understand why not many people are here." He looked at Cody. "Fair warning, brah: Sierra's looking for you."

Cody shuddered. "Please don't tell her I'm here."

"Don't worry, dude; I got your back."

"If you're done chatting," Courtney interrupted. "Can we get back to the investigation?"

Gwen swallowed the sick feeling in her throat as she looked at Trent's body. It had remained untouched since she had last seen it. The knife was still lodged in his throat.

Clue: Knife in throat

"Whoever did this, they clearly didn't have an easy time," Cody noted. "Look around the room." Gwen followed his suggestion and saw that the room was a mess. The desk drawers were hanging out and twisted, the bedside table was split in half, and there were several gashes in the wall. Trent's arm, on closer inspection, seemed to also have a gash in it.

Clue: Signs of a Struggle

"At least he didn't go down without a fight," Leshawna muttered quietly.

Despite the situation, Gwen had to smile slightly at the thought of Trent putting up a fight against his killer. As she did, she took a step towards his body and felt something crunch under her boot. She looked down and stepped back, revealing a small piece of glass on the floor. She frowned, kneeling down and carefully picking the shard up.

"How'd glass get in here?" she wondered, staring at her reflection in the shard. "All the windows are sealed off."

Clue: Glass Shard

"Ooo, so that's what a dead body looks like." Everyone turned around to see Izzy in the door. "Gnarly. Look how the blood's dried to his skin."

"Do you mind, Izzy?" Courtney snapped. "We're in the middle of an investigation. We don't have time for your craziness."

Izzy let out a giggle. "Izzy's great at investigations."

"Well Izzy should get out of our hair so I can find evidence to catch the culprit," Courtney advised, shooting a glare at Gwen.

"What makes you so determined to prove that I did it?" Gwen shot back at her. "Because I clearly didn't."

"Oh, so you're saying you just decided to sleep while a murder was going on in the same room?'

"I didn't just decide to sleep," Gwen argued. "Someone knocked me out." She rubbed her head. "I have the lump to prove it."

Clue: Gwen's Testimony

"Oh, please," Courtney scoffed. "Like anyone's going to believe that."

"I believe you," Izzy said. "I saw something last night."

Gwen whipped her head to her. "What did you see?"

Izzy let out a laugh. "I noticed someone going into your room last night. Really fast. I didn't see who it was, though; I only saw someone tall and muscular."

Clue: Izzy's Testimony

Gwen sighed. "It's better than nothing, I guess."

"CODY!" Sierra burst into the room. "What are you doing with that—that murderer! She's going to kill you!"

"Sierra—" Cody tried to defend himself, but Sierra grabbed him and dragged him away.

"Come with me, Codykins. Let's get you out of here before she tries to seduce you and lure you away to get murdered," Sierra cooed as she pulled a struggling Cody out of sight.

"Dudes, check this out." Geoff had been inspecting Trent's body. He pulled something out of his pocket.

"Are you seriously stripping Trent's things away from him?" Leshawna asked.

"Chill; look what I found." Geoff showed the group what he had found: a CD.

"Is that one of those videos that Monokuma showed us?" Courtney asked with a slight shudder.

"It's gotta be. Must be the one he gave to Trent." Geoff examined the disk. "Wonder what's on it."

"He told me it was like mine," Gwen told him. "A video with his family missing and blood everywhere."

"Maybe there's more on it," Geoff suggested. "Maybe it'll tell us who the killer is."

"Why would Trent's CD tell us who the killer is?" Courtney questioned.

"Still, it might be worth a look anyway," Leshawna commented.

"You sure about this?" Gwen asked.

"Play it," Leshawna replied as she, Courtney, Geoff, and Izzy stood behind her.

Gwen took a deep breath, inserting the CD into one of the computers. She wasn't sure why she was nervous. She knew what was on it. Trent had told her himself.

The screen lit up. But instead of showing Trent's family, as he had claimed, it instead showed a chart with the pictures of Trent, Justin, Harold, and Cody. Monokuma's voice provided narration.

"The Drama Brothers have been known around the world as one of the greatest boy bands out there," he said. "But not every member on the band is liked." The chart suddenly displayed results in the form of a bar graph, with Cody's bar at the highest and Trent's at the lowest. "A recent poll taken among their fans showed that Trent is the most unpopular member of the band. Specifically, he's the one member of the band that no one would care if he were offed." A red X went over Trent's face.

"I thought you said this was like the rest of our videos," Courtney said to Gwen.

"That's what Trent said," Gwen insisted as the video went on about how much people liked Cody more than anyone else. "Why would he lie about something like this?"

"I have another question," Leshawna spoke up. "Why is Trent's video different from everyone else's?"

Clue: Trent's Video

"Yeah," Geoff agreed. "This seems more comical than dark. Not like the rest of the videos."

"Students of Hope's Peak," Monokuma's voice boomed through the intercom. "Investigation time is over. Please report to the elevator room for your first class trial."

"Looks like we're out of time," Leshawna commented.

"Goodie," Izzy said with a grin. "Let's see some more carnage." She ran off with a crazed laugh.

"I swear that girl is enjoying every moment of this shitshow," Leshawna muttered.

"Well, let's get this over with," Courtney said, glaring at Gwen slightly. "And bring the murderer to justice."

The teenagers all arrived in the elevator room to find it completely empty—aside for a large elevator.

"Single file please," Monokuma ordered as the elevator doors opened. "Chop chop. These executions won't perform themselves, you know."

Once the group was in, the elevator doors closed and the elevator itself started to travel upwards. Gwen could feel several pairs of eyes on her.

She avoided making eye contact and clenched her fists slightly. She had to find a way to convince them that she was innocent. Not only that, but she had to figure out who really killed Trent.

All their lives depended on it.

Alive: Owen, Gwen, Heather, Duncan, Leshawna, Geoff, Izzy, DJ, Lindsay, Bridgette, Harold, Courtney, Sadie, Beth, Cody, Tyler, Katie, Justin, Noah, Ezekiel, Sierra, Alejandro

Dead: Trent, Eva

Yep, Eva's dead. I figured that, given the characters' personalities, Eva would be the one to challenge Monokuma as recklessly as that, and pay the ultimate price.

So, now that you've seen the clues, who do you think killed Trent? Honestly, the answer is pretty easy to see in my opinion, but hey, the first case in Danganronpa was pretty easy to spot too. There's one certain clue that probably easily tells you who Trent's killer is. I'm very interested to see if y'all can figure it out.

But anywho, that's all from me. Make sure you hit that favorite/follow button to stay informed on future updates, and don't forget to drop a review to let me know how I'm doing. Until next time, this is Guest 1138, reminding you that plot armor only applies to whoever the author decides to give it to. Ciao!