Reuben was sitting at his desk and trying to get on with some work. The pressure was not so great as he'd got through a few of his exams , but the rest of them were breathing down his neck , like an angry dragon.

But at the same time , Hope's Peak was tugging at him , wanting to be watched. For he had watched the discovery of Akaya's body the day before.

So , when he realised that he had been writing names of the survivors all over his notebook , he ripped out the page , balled it up , and gave up , going straight to the next video.

By then, everyone had gathered around Akaya's bed , and looked much like a misfit family surrounding the death bed of an ailing elderly relative. Which was partially accurate , because although Akaya was nowhere near elderly , she was ailing before she'd died.

It was surprising how peaceful she looked in death. There was no blood , or any outward injuries (save her broken leg and fading bruises).She didn't look as troubled as she had in the days leading up to her death , and if Kosuke hadn't flagged up that she was dead , then she would have easily been mistaken for someone asleep. Such a stark contrast to the last two cases , Reuben felt. And yet , that somehow made it worse.

"Where can we even start?" Emi exclaimed after a long moment of stunned silence that was broken only by Shika's weeping.

"Well , I wonder if Kobayashi-kun knows something?" Mirai said snarkily.

Everyone looked at him , and he glared in a way that wasn't exaggerated but was extremely intimidating.

"What makes you think I would break the Hippocratic Oath? And for what purpose?"

"I guess the guy has a point. " Akihito said tiredly. "He doesn't seem like the Shipman type to me."

Reuben stifled a laugh at Akihito's mention of the worst serial killer in the UK. Predictably , most of the others were confused.

"Well…what do you see, Kirigiri-san? Anything that seems out of place?" Makoto asked.

"As far as I can tell, everything seems pretty normal. Kobayashi-kun, did you give her any kind of medication? Something the culprit could have used to give her an overdose of?"

"No. I would give her paracetomol every time I checked in on her, but that was it."

"Have you noticed anything else about her?"

"Hmm…I guess you could say that I regret not having access to antidepressants. That and the fact that psychiatry is not my good point."

"Are you saying she was depressed?"

"Well, I know the diagnosis can only be officially made after a month, but I would say she was well on her way to it. "

"What does her state of mind have to do with it?" Akihito asked.

"She was vulnerable. " Kyouko explained.

"Well, duh."

"Why not just poke around here, and see if anything odd comes up? Then go around to all the places she had been to before dying?" Janus suggested. "I cannot think of anything better to do."

"You can't poke through Akaya-Chan's stuff!" Shika protested. "That's rude!"

Suzu tapped Shika's shoulder and shook her head sadly, as if to say it didn't really matter at this point. Shika's response was to glare at her, which was pretty uncharacteristic. Then , she turned away.

"Before that , what about the Monobear files?" Arisa jumped in unexpectedly. "Didn't we forget about them the last time ? They might be important now , especially as there seems to be nothing here-not that I'm good at investigating or anything. "

"Of course , that makes sense!" Makoto exclaimed. "Maeda-kun , would you?"

Eirik did , but what he said was unexpected.

"Apparently she died at around 9:45pm last night , and the cause of death was suffocation. And apparently , it would have been almost instantaneous. "

"Well now , that makes the tragedy less so , which is at least something. " Janus said after a stunned silence.

"Kobayashi-kun , what time did you check on Kiyomizu-san?" Kyouko asked

"I…erm , what time did dinner finish up last night?"

"Around 8:30." She said.

"In which case I last saw her about 10 minutes after that , then went to quickly check up on the infirmary before going to bed. "

"Oh yeah , I remember seeing you!You were coming out of the infirmary just as I had finished clearing up after all you slob-heads!" Emi said

An alibi right there. I doubt it was him anyway. So , who?

Then Kosuke added something else.

"At that time , I left her with Isaki-san and Sayuri-san."

No way.

Suzu went to write in her notebook , but Shika jumped in.

"We both stayed with her ,just chatting and whatever , until about half past 9, then Suzu-Chan tucked her in and we left. Together!"

Suzu gave Shika an odd , unreadable look , then put her notebook away and nodded to signal her agreement.

"Well, that clears it. Anyway, I don't think Isaki-san is the killing type." Akihito declared.

"I think we should keep any suspects out of mind , and go in to this clean-slated." Kyouko said calmly. "How about we split up and investigate?"

"Then perhaps we should stay here, and go through her stuff-not her clothes and whatever , but just her bedside table contents or whatever. " Makoto told her.

"In which case I'm not staying here! I can't look at you poking through my friend's stuff!" Shika shrieked.

"I'll take charge of the infirmary." Kosuke cut in "So you come with me."

Shika didn't seem happy about it, but she obliged. Janus and Suzu followed , and then some of the others left until Akihito , Makoto and Kyouko were the only ones left in the room. Well , Akaya was still in the bed , but Reuben wasn't sure that she counted.

Makoto went around to Akaya's bedside table cupboard, and opened it , pulling out the items carefully . There wasn't all that much in there, and he soon put everything back , saying so to Kyouko and Akihito.

Kyouko was inspecting the items on the desk. There were various paperbacks , and some pens and sheets of writing paper. Some of them looked like research papers , printouts she must have brought with her –or even printed out at the school without remembering. It was entirely possible , given that apparently they'd been under the impression it was January when Reuben knew for a fact it was May.

Just as he thought about that , another thought slammed him.

The school year starts in January for them, doesn't it?

He had no idea if that was actually significant or not , but now he'd made the connection , it swirled around and around in his head.

He was distracted from this by Akihito speaking.

"Could it have been a pillow?" he asked , all serious.

Kyouko and Makoto looked at him , but it was Makoto who asked him to elaborate. So he did.

"She died via suffocation , right? So a pillow would do the trick , wouldn't it. Besides , the one that's being used to prop up her leg looks crooked , and I think it might be a bit damp?"

"You're actually quite observant , aren't you?" Kyouko commented absently as she came to confirm this for herself.

"Ha! I think I'll be competing for your title soon!" Akihito said, attempting to be as jokey as ever, although the sentence faltered a little.

Kyouko gave him a thin-lipped smile in understanding.

The scene changed to show Shika , but for some reason , almost as soon as it did so , the video ended. Reuben went to play the next video , but something made him stop.

Perhaps I should make notes on all the new information?

So he did, and all of it went on the pin board , along with everything else he had accumulated. He stared at it for a long , long time.

What am I doing? Why am I doing this?

But even as he asked himself this , he knew the answer.

Because I care about them, despite having never met them. Because this is going too far.

"Right!" he said aloud to himself. "Best get to work then!"

He went back on the computer , and opened a new tab , starting his research.

His first step was to see if the video had been reposted anywhere at all. He didn't know where , exactly he'd go from there , but knowing he wasn't the only one to have seen it could prove helpful.

Except it didn't , because it had seemed that nobody had found them. At all.

Wracking his brains , Reuben pondered his next step. Then he remembered Kimiko mentioning something about school forums. So he focused his search there . After 40 minutes of combing all the forums he could , however , he had to conclude that he was the only one who knew about the videos , and their reality. But why didn't anyone else know?

Wait , that was a stupid question. It had come up , time and time again. He didn't quite get the details, but some sort of power failure had stopped the school from being able to contact the outside world. Apparently. It sounded hard to swallow, but judging from he had learnt , Hope's Peak had a large amount of authority of the type no one would question. Which would be perfect , as Reuben was convinced that the whole 'power failure' thing was merely an elaborate ruse to stop the outside world questioning lack of communication and discovering the killing game. But then, what was the point of the videos?

He considered bringing it to the attention to the police , but he figured there were two things wrong with that. First , they were in England while Janus , Suzu , Akihito and the others were in Japan. Second , this was insane. He barely believed himself , so he knew that he'd have a hard time getting someone else who didn't even know of the existence of the school to believe him.

So , why not get the attention of the people who write on the forums? Get them to believe you , then , as they'll be in a better position to save the others , you can get them to help you.

He quickly checked which sites he could just post on , and which ones he would need to sign up to. Deciding to only sign up to two if he needed to , he came up with a total of 8 potential sources of help. He got to work straight away , posting the videos, along with a message , which after much typing and retyping came to just a few words:

"I don't know if anyone has come across this , but I know the sister of Arisa Ishi , SDHSL Mathematician , and so this caused me to be suspicious. What do you think of this?"

Once he had done that , he felt a little relieved , and closed the tab . Then, he went on to the next video.

The scene started at the point where the previous video had stopped , with Shika, but she wasn't in the infirmary with Kosuke. Instead, she was in what Reuben thought of as the 'farm room', sitting by the coop. She had released three of the chickens, and they appeared to be dancing as she clicked her fingers in a particular beat. But unlike a couple of videos before, she didn't look happy. Instead, her eyes were completely dead, and it was almost scary.

The clip only lasted a small while before changing to show Kosuke, Janus and Suzu in the infirmary. Suzu sat on one of the beds, swinging her legs and taking notes as Janus and Kosuke combed the medicine cabinets.

"So , it really looks like the culprit left no evidence , doesn't it?" Janus said eventually, coming to sit next to Suzu.

"Probably. They didn't take anything. But this is making me think, I wish I had more than the mere basics…" Kosuke replied.

"What do you mean?"

"If I'd had some antidepressants at hand, then maybe this wouldn't have happened."

"Oh yeah , you mentioned that. But…"

"At least, as a doctor, I should have taken better care of my patient. "

"I…there's nothing you could have done. Unless it really was suicide."

This statement, for some reason, seemed to distress Suzu a lot, and so the two boys changed the subject, which made Reuben smile a little.

The next few scenes were simply different clips of the students all doing different things-some obviously helpful , some not so much. All of these were set to some jaunty music. And then , Monobear announced the time was up . The video ended at that point.

Reuben sighed , and rubbed his eyes. He didn't have a clue as to what was going on , or why it was going on. To get it straight in his head , he decided to make a timeline of everything he knew on Word Document. When he finished that , he realised how much he didn't know , for there were large gaps in the timeline.

But at least it's a start.

With that thought in mind , he saved it in a folder he'd made to store all the Hope's Peak related stuff he'd accumulated , and then shut down the computer and tried to focus.

…

"Reuben, play with me!"

Matilda's voice broke his concentration, and he was surprised at just how much time had gone by. He rubbed his eyes and began to formulate a response when his father poked his head around the door.

"You know what's coming up , don't you?"

Reuben had to think a moment.

"The Bird House's 20th anniversary."

"Exactly." His father didn't need to say anymore. Reuben sighed.

"I get it.I need the break anyway. " he got up and went over to his youngest sister.

"So...what do you want to do then , Birdy?"

"Draw!" Matilda shouted gleefully, running off and making Reuben chase her to her room.

Reuben then spent the next couple of hours playing with Matilda in her room , before making dinner and then bringing down some of his textbooks so that he could study a little while making sure that Matilda and Megan actually ate.

…

He dreamt of nothing as he slept that night.

This case is less complex than the previous one , but I'm dragging it out a lot to accommodate more of Reuben's side of things. Anyway , please leave feedback!

((For anyone wondering 'Shipman' is Harold Fred Shipman , a doctor who killed many elderly patients over a couple of decades. The number of deaths he caused are in the 100s , making him one of the worst serial killers.))