Suika screams. It's quite the sight. A head exploded into a million pieces, the naked body, untouched. Blood is everywhere. On the walls, on the ceiling, on the ground. The Nurse goes and turns off the shower.

"Nobody move."

The Nurse stops.

"I don't want to say it was any of you, but I don't know. We need to solve this without it becoming a blame festival. Nurse, can you do an autopsy?"

"It's not my specialty, but I think I could do one."

I check the body first. The back of the head is completely destroyed. The front of the face is also torn apart. I can't really tell who it is. Judging by the rest of the body, it looks like it's Chikao. There are two bullets that seem like they missed their target. One in the shower, one piercing the glass. The grate to the air vent is gone.

"The three of you stay here. Make sure nobody tampers with the corpse."

"Okay."

I roll out the of the bathroom and wake up Tatsuha.

"Ah? Capi?"

"Chikao was murdered."

"Huh?", he leans up, not believing what I said. "You're joking, r-r…ight?"

"You can go see for yourself."

Tastuha pulls the covers off with a rush and sprints to the shower, as the steam makes it apparent that it had been used. He screams.

"Everybody listen carefully to what I'm going to say. I don't think Chikao's death came from the outside. It had to have been one of us."

"Why do you say that? Someone could have snuck in."

"Why kill just Chikao? I know that he was in Despair, but that's even better reasoning not to kill him out of all of the eight of us. If it was someone on our side, then they'd at least talk to us. It was one of us. I'm sure of it."

"So one of us is a murderer? How are we going to deal with them? It's not like we can call the cops."

"We have to find out who did it, though. If we don't, we'll forever doubt each other, thinking that they could have been the murderer.", my voice deepens, "Whoever it was, fess up now. It'll make everything go a lot quicker."

No one speaks.

"I see. Nurse, when and what was the cause of death?"

"The death was very recent. Probably about ten minutes before we found it. It was caused by a gunshot to the front of the head. He has no other injuries."

"Front of the head? Then he'd be looking right at the killer."

"There's nothing you can do when death's right in front of you."

I set my gun onto the bathroom counter.

"Tatsuha, give me your gun."

He does. It hasn't been fired, as it is full of ammo.

"Did your your gun ever leave your person?"

"No. You told us to keep it on us."

"You can check my gun. It hasn't been fired. It's been on me since Kin gave it to me."

I open each cabinet of the bathroom, including the mirror. There is nothing out of the ordinary.

"Capi, what are you looking for?"

"It could have been a suicide, but a suicide in a locked room is impossible without a gun."

I take a second to gather my thoughts.

"Everyone get into the living room. Make sure no one leaves or does anything suspicious. If any of you distrust me, follow me. No, someone, please. Follow me."

Tatsuha stands up.

"I'll go."

Tatsuha follows me into the master bedroom.

"I'm sorry, Captain. I don't distrust you, it's just th-"

"There's something off about this room."

"Hm? Off?"

"Where's the air vent? There's just a hole in the side of the wall."

Tatsuha climbs up on the bed and reaches his hand into the hole.

"I don't feel a metal grate or anything around here."

There's a roll of string on the ground and I pick it up. Tastuha and I look around for anything else, but we don't find anything, so we go into the other bathroom.

"The grate to the air vent is right here." Tatsuha picks it up and hands it to me. The screws make it seem impossible to unscrew from the outside. It looks like it was pushed from the inside to make it fall out. It doesn't look like the tub or sink have been used, considering that Chikao had been using the shower, it would have been impossible to use at the time. There's a piece of string on the ground. There's a stool in here, too.

"Ah, they may have used that to pull the grate off."

There's nothing odd about the other bedroom, or the kitchen.

We go to the hallway closet where Chikao was pushed to. It's very cramped in there. There's another metal grate in there, though.

"Hey, this is the one from the bathroom, right?"

I think I can go from here. We return to the living room.

"Where shall we start?"

"Well, who could have done it?"

"Couldn't it have been any of us?"

"What do you mean by that, Nurse?"

"Well, we were all in our beds, so assuming that one of us could get into the bathroom, no one would notice."

"But don't we share rooms? When Chikao woke us up last night, he woke all of us up. Well, except for Tastuha. If someone made a lot of noise, we'd notice right away."

"Uh, Capi, you don't share a room."

"Oda, who was in the room with you?"

"Tastuha. Murata and Kin are still gone and Chikao was in the closet so…Wait, you aren't suggesting that I could get up without Tastuha noticing."

"That's exactly what I'm suggesting. That means that there are four suspects; Myself, Oda, Murata, and Kin."

"But Murata and Kin aren't here."

"Exactly. We have no idea what they were doing at the time. It could very easily be one or both of them."

"What about the girls? We don't know how deep of sleepers they are."

"I sleep normally, thank you very much."

"The shower woke us all up."

"Couldn't the killer have used the loudness of the shower to block out the sound of someone moving around?"

"Ah, but if the shower woke everyone but me up, then they'd be awake to see the culprit moving around."

"But I can't see."

"What?! I didn't do it! The door was locked! I couldn't have gotten in!"

"There was a window in there, right?"

"It was locked, too. And it's only lockable from the inside."

I put the metal grate onto the coffee table.

"There were the air vents. Tatsuha found this in the other bathroom."

Tatsuha sighs a bit.

Saito recognizes it. "Oh, that's not related to the murder, though. Last night, there was a hole above the bed, so we had Suika climb through it. It lead to the bathroom and she broke it. Sorry about that."

"Why Suika?"

"She was the smallest so…"

I put the second grate down onto the table.

"I found this in the hallway closet, where Chikao was sleeping."

"Why would it be there?"

"It's an easy place to hide something. We wouldn't normally had looked in there."

"So it was someone who didn't know that Chikao was in the closet."

"A girl."

"It could have been, Kin or Murata, too."

"Or...Capi."

Everyone gives me a long, hard look.

"So, Captain. I'm sorry, but everything points to you. You have a gun, you could have moved around without anyone noticing, and well...You'd have motive."

"I agree. It could have been me."

"Huh?"

"So far, in every evidence, something proves that it could have been me. Honestly, I'm not even frustrated in the slightest. It could very well have been me. Amnesia isn't just about forgetting the past. I wouldn't rule it out. However, the evidence still points to all of us. We still haven't figured out how the killer used the air vents to murder Chikao."

"Well, they climbed in the air vents from the bedroom, carrying a gun, shot Chikao from above the shower, and beelined it out of there."

"Beeline? You'd have to back out of the air vents. There's not enough room to turn around."

"Wouldn't someone be sleeping on the bed in the master bedroom?"

"Suika and I were. Togashi slept on the chair."

"They could have gone in from the bathroom. After all, the vent was missing from there, too."

"But if the shower was being used, then we know that the other bathroom wouldn't work."

"You could go for a poo."

"Tried it. Doesn't work, either."

"Why didn't Chikao use the other bathroom? Didn't we all agree to use the slightly quieter one?"

"Ah! That's why. Someone was using the quieter bathroom when Chikao went to shower. He didn't hear the other shower or the toilet flushing, but the door must have been locked. So went to take a shower in the louder bathroom. The killer must have did that so no one could hear the gunshots."

"But why hide the sound of the gunshot when we'd find the body anyways?"

"Time. Like we said earlier, you couldn't turn when you're in the air vent, so muffling the gunshots will give you enough time to get out of there and not have any suspicion placed upon you."

"Where'd the gun come from? I checked yours, Capi. It wasn't used any time recently."

"Nurse, do you have the bullet?"

"Uh, yes."

"Can I see it?"

She goes back into the bathroom and retrieves the bullet. She hands it to me. It's small.

"Tatsuha, hand me your gun."

He does. I remove a single bullet from each of our rifles. They are roughly the same size. The one from Chikao's head is much smaller and in a different shape.

"I think now we can say that this was not fired from Murata's rifle. This bullet was not shot by one of the three guns that we have."

"Then when did they get a new gun?"

"My guess is sometime while finding this place or looking for me."

"Actually, wouldn't it make more sense for it to have been while the four were gone? They were specifically looking for supplies and didn't really find anything. It would be easy to get split up at least once."

"Our group did get torn apart quite a bit. But nothing bad happened so we didn't report it…"

"Nurse, you mentioned this before. Why did you choose Suika to go through the vent?"

"She was small. I wanted to, but I doubted that I could fit."

"Oda, I think we can safely say that it wasn't you, either."

"Hm…Why?"

"You just became blind. You wouldn't even have seen an air vent, little less known it lead from the quiet to loud bathroom."

"Yeah."

"It couldn't have been myself, either. I don't have legs. Even if I had a stool, I wouldn't have enough balance to get myself in the air vent. And I'm not faking it, either. Ask Ms. Saito."

"Yeah. I'm still teaching him how to walk. up a ladder and he would definitely fall."

"That leaves Suika, Tatsuha, and Togashi."

"I couldn't have done it. I don't have arms."

"You don't have shoulders, either. You'd fit in there quite nicely. There was a stool in there. You wouldn't have to push yourself up."

"But I couldn't shoot a gun."

"I found this on the ground of the quiet bathroom."

I put the string I found on the table. It has a loop on each end.

"You put this around your toe, didn't you? Wrapped the other end on the trigger. Pull back with your chin. It's definitely possible."

She fakes a smile. Oh, it was her. It definitely was her. I don't know how, I don't know why, but she killed Chikao. She had to have.

"Where's the roll of the string?"

"Ah, give me a second. It should be on my nightstand."

He leaves and it takes a while before he comes back.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't find it."

"It's alright. I got it."

I place it onto the table.

"What was the point of me looking for it, then?" Tatsuha is clearly angry at me.

"Proving your innocence. If you actually knew where it was, you'd overexaggerate looking for it. It was in the master bedroom anyways. I found it on the ground. I found cut string on the ground of the bathroom."

"So what are you saying by that?"

"One of the girls went into the other bedroom, knowing that Tatsuha had it and forgot to give it back to him. The only one who'd know that Tatsuha had it would be you, Togashi. You're the only woman who went outside today."

"Even if I did have the string, how could I made a loop that well without hands?"

Damn it. Good point. Shit. I have no idea.

"Well…" It's Oda's voice. "You did ask me to tie something for you, yesterday. I don't want to think that you killed Chikao, but you did, right?"

Something struck Togashi like a bullet to the heart. The person she liked the most here just called her out. She whipped her head around knowing with that info, she'd be called out.

"Nurse, Suika. Did Togashi ask to go to the bathroom just before Chikao went to shower?"

"I think. She said that she had diarrhea."

"Diarrhea? I don't get—"

"And who was the first person who be at the shower door?"

"Well, when I woke up, Suika was already awake. Togashi was already…there…"

"She couldn't possibly have gone to the bathroom for that long. And plus, how could she clean herself without hands? Isn't that suspicious?"

"But none of this is definitive evidence. Give me hard proof I killed Chikao!"

"You took a shower tonight, right? Well, I was with you. It's good to take a shower everyday."

"Yeah, so?"

"Why are you covered in dust?"

Togashi gives a scowl.

"You crawled through the vents. You were clean when you went to the bathroom tonight."

Togashi looks like she's about to burst. Fess up, criminal. We all know you did it. I told you to fess up earlier. I said it'd make things easier.

Something in her stirs, and she becomes calm.

"I did it. I killed Chikao. You're absolutely right. I used the air vent, I used the string. Thank you, Oda for so carefully tying it for me."

It's just like Shimizu Tae. Hateful.

"Why, Togashi? Why kill an innocent man?"

The Nurse leads an outburst.

"Today, I got separated from Tatsuha and Oda, only to be left with Chikao. At first, I didn't really mind it. He might be crazy, but he won't hurt me. That's what I thought. But then it struck me. I could kill him right now and it would do the world a favor. But I'm not a killer. That's what I thought. But then he spoke to me.

'Hey, Togashi. What happened to your arms?'

He was the first one to ask. So I told him. It all came back. You don't just go into a coma from pain. It's a mental blockage, too. My mind was blocking off the Despair that I felt. That I still feel.

Do you know what it's like to smell your own blood, to see your own arms writhe as their being cut off? Things like that are the things that drive someone 'mad' as you call it.

Despair isn't just a disease or virus. It's an emotion. It's an essential part to being human. And how could I have missed that? Shut off a part of myself. Even without arms, I am still human because I feel Despair. Because I feel sad, because I feel pain. So I gave Chikao his final Despair. The Hope of all you working together. The Hope that you, Captain, the one he admired, would find me, and eradicate it."

"He was looking right at you. The bullet went through the front of his head. Even though you missed, he stayed still for you."

"I think we should decide a punishment."

"Punishment?"

"There's no law. Yet she committed a crime. Everyone here, except for Togashi, of course, may give a single vote to one of three options. No punishment, restrictions, or execution. Each vote will change the severity of the final outcome. Who votes no punishment?"

Saito raises her hand.

"What is wrong with you people? You wish to execute her? She needs help, not an execution."

Tatsuha raises his hand.

"I'm with you, Nurse."

"Who votes for restrictions?"

Suika raises her hand.

"Oda, do you abstain, or do you want an execution?"

"Execution."

"What about you, Capi?"

"I vote for restriction, as well."

"It's okay. I'll decide the punishment.", Oda holds up a small pistol. What is he doing? "I'm blind and I only want to kill Togashi. I can't do that, though. I can't even kill someone in Despair." He points the gun at himself. "But I know where I am. I can kill myself."

No! No!

Togashi nudges his hand aside with her head. His hand drops and he fires. It hits her in the head. No one screams. No one says a word. Oda is shaking.

"Is this tears?"

"Oda, it's blood."

"Who did I kill?"

"Togashi."

True tears stream down his face, mixing with the blood that covers his whole body.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

He drops the gun on the ground.

"It's okay. It wasn't…" Saito stops herself. It was definitely his fault. He won't stop crying, so all she can do is go in and give him a hug.

"It'll be okay, Oda."