"So that leaves us with only one more question!" Rika grinned as the court returned to session. "Just what the heck was in that needle?"

"Well, poison would be the most likely—" Haruna began, but before she could finish, to her surprise—

Your misunderstanding is your misfortune! "Do not be so quick to jump to conclusions," the Ultimate Diviner warned sweetly.

"J-jump to conclusions?" Haruna echoed, caught off guard by Hiiro's sudden input. Even though the older girl was smiling, Haruna could sense that they were about to engage in a rebuttal showdown. Clearly, Hiiro didn't believe that Kurumi was poisoned.

"I completely understand where you are coming from," Hiiro began, and Haruna clung to her every word so that she would not miss her opponent's weak point. "However, I believe that there is something you may have forgotten."

"And what something is that?" Haruna asked guardedly.

"You really don't recall what Monochio told us on the very first day?"

"You mean during orientation?"

"Yes, it made note of this while documenting the rules. Even though the statement itself was not technically a rule, Monochio wanted us to know that it had certain, specific expectations of us during the Killing Game. Do you know what I am referring to?"

After a moment of pondering, thinking hard as she rested a finger on her chin, the answer became clear to Haruna. I got it!

"Ah, yes, you're referring to Monochio mentioning that it wished to limit the number of lethal items in the academy to encourage… creativity in our crimes…" The thought alone made Haruna shudder. Maybe that was why she'd forgotten. She hadn't wanted to remember something like that. A moment later, though, her eyes widened in embarrassed realization. Wasn't she supposed to be refuting Hiiro's doubt, not supporting its foundation?

"Just where did that needle come from anyway?" Towa asked, confused and concerned.

"Where do people usually find needles?" Noa answered a question with a question, the answer already spelled out in her mind. Nurse's office.

Miyu and Haruna immediately tensed up when someone finally shouted the answer. They stole glances at one another out of the corner of their eyes.

Miyu's smile was compassionate, though tinged with sadness. Oh, Haruna, you did your best…

"So, if Monochio doesn't keep poison, and yet Kurumi was poisoned to death, does that mean Monochio broke its own rules?" Muni interrupted with a pout. Monochio immediately hopped up, hissing.

"Of course not! As you yourself just said, it is against the rules!"

"Ok, ok, ok, jeez!" Muni reared back, even though she was on the opposite side of the trial room. "Don't have to be so mean about it!"

"Also, we're talking about medicine, right?" Saori asked timidly. "Would that really poison someone?"

"Like I said before, what if it was laced?" Shinobu muttered darkly.

"Now, now!" Monochio's tail lashed. "I told you time and again that I do not dabble in murderous affairs. My medicine is not poison. It is not my fault if you did not administer it as prescribed!"

"But what if we did?" Miyu argued, losing patience, ignoring those around her warning her to settle down before she upset the Headcatster.

"What if you didn't?" it shot back coldly, and they were locked in a verbal tug-of-war. Miyu imaged their opposing sentences as ever-lengthening ropes that they had to fight over. Whoever pulled their opponent to the ground first won, but that would only come with the strongest argument, because anything less ran the risk of breaking under the pressure of the stronger evidence. Unfortunately for Miyu, Monochio had it.

"Taking medication as prescribed isn't just about how you take it—the dosage and method and whatnot—it's also why you take it! Does medicine benefit a healthy person?"

"Healthy person?!" Miyu demanded, but it was then that Dalia piped up.

"This medicine you're talking about… Is it that "Monochio's Miracle Medicine" stuff?"

"Y-yes, how did you know?" Miyu's anger was temporarily forgotten because of her surprise. Dalia replied with a grim smile as she touched her cheek. The scar was gone, but she remembered.

"It reverses any and all adverse effects someone is suffering from. So, my cut, for example, it healed it because the opposite of having a cut is having the cells mended and replaced."

"So that's why Kurumi's headwound was so shallow…" Haruna breathed, but Miyu was still shaking her head.

"It still doesn't make sense why medicine like that would kill her…"

"Perhaps there is an assumption you are making about the nature of Ms. Shiratori's injuries." Monochio's ears twitched and tail flicked.

No… Miyu didn't want to face it, but she was dragged down the road anyway, every signpost mapping the entire journey in horribly perfect detail. Every piece had fallen into place over the course of the whole trial. The knives were not the cause of death. The head injury wasn't. And if they believed nothing in Monochio's academy was poisonous, the first thing Kurumi was injected with wasn't the cause of death either, even though it may have severely incapacitated her. Taken together with what Dalia said about Monochio's medicine and how it reversed adverse effects…

"Why would someone use a nonlethal though? Doesn't seem very effective in getting rid of someone who saw something they shouldn't!" Marika frowned, touching her chin.

"Maybe that was the point," Tsubaki murmured, starting to understand. "What if they just wanted to get rid of her, but without risking execution?"

Then Miyu came along and essentially, unintentionally took the bullet they tried to dodge and shot herself and Kurumi with it. She had stumbled upon a suffering Kurumi, but that didn't automatically mean she was dying. Though Miyu and Haruna could be forgiven for not being able to distinguish the difference, it didn't change the fact that Kurumi was dead now.

I'm the Ultimate Lucky Student, but none of this is very lucky at all… Among too many other things, Miyu wound up choosing the one medication that could've actually killed Kurumi because she thought it was the only one that wouldn't. And because of that, she was going to die instead of Kurumi's actual attacker. But that didn't make the medication poison. It was a user error in the cruelest sense.

That's the lifeblood of this sick, twisted, evil Killing Game, isn't it? It's not just the murder or mystery, it's seeing how even the kindest can become killers… We none of us woke up in this academy excepting to become murderers and yet twice over in a matter of mere weeks…

At the same time, Esora finally spoke. "Miyu… Why are you suddenly so curious about all of this?" As if she didn't already suspect.

"Why do you think?" Miyu asked in a whisper, then her pink eyes swept around the rest of the trial room. It was as if she was being asked to select the culprit, and once the metaphorical finger reached her, she confessed. "I killed Kurumi." I'm the only one who could've done it…

ooo

"Ok. That's it. New rule. No one's allowed to go around declaring themselves the killer unless the rest of the class has had a go at them first!" Shinobu interrupted, scowling. "You're supposed to defend yourself from us, not take the wind out of our sails and confess for us!"

Miyu only chuckled sadly and shook her head, then she told the story. She and Haruna were notified by the apps Haruna downloaded on their PheFo.

"Apps on your PheFo?" Esora interjected, blinking in surprise.

"I collaborated with some of the DJs and VJs because I wanted to design something that let me keep an eye on my unit-mates' PheFos from afar," Haruna said. "And before you ask, no, I did not fail to speak to you intentionally. The app was merely completed before I had a chance."

In hindsight, though… Haruna gave a tiny scowl at the other girl before composing herself and continuing her testimony. Even though she felt guilty for creating the app, it was the only reason they knew anything was wrong the night Kurumi died. Even though Haruna and Miyu didn't know where she was, knowing that she was desperate for more memories gave them an idea of where to look.

Sure enough, Haruna and Miyu found Kurumi slumped over a computer with a head injury and blood on her arm. The reason the blood on her arm was gone by the time the investigation began was because Haruna accidentally wiped it off while holding her.

"We panicked," Miyu said, shoulders slumped. "I ran to get that medicine Dalia was talking about, but now that we know how it works…"

"Oh, Miyu!" Tsubaki and Saori were some of the first to reach for her, both of them longing to rush to her side and protect her, but it was evident from Monochio's scowl and tail-lash that they were expected to stay at their podiums.

"I was going to tell you all eventually, I swear!" Miyu wept, gripping the railing of her podium. "I never intended to let any of you die for me! I just… wanted to see if I could figure out who attacked Kurumi first… That's even why we tampered with the crime scene as well!" Miyu trailed off mournfully, and several others made noises of confusion and surprise.

"Wait, what tampering did you do?" Maho asked, alarmed.

"The syringe Miyu fetched is not the only one that was used on Kurumi," Haruna replied grimly. "That injury on her arm was there when we found her, though we found no needles lying about." The one Miyu fetched became the one added into the evidence gallery, because even though it wasn't the needle she and Haruna wanted answers for, no one else had to know, at least in the beginning.

"Oh, Miyu, why didn't you tell any of us any of this sooner?!" Towa bawled.

"Isn't that obvious?" Noa tried to sound snarky, but she failed miserably. "She probably knew that if she started the trial telling us everything she knew, we would immediately see her as the murderer and lose the ability to be objective!" Of course, Noa wanted to protest that they would never do that to Miyu—she was just so pure, sweet, precious, and docile!—but Noa had to admit that Miyu was clever for thinking of such a possibility.

"In a way, I suppose I behaved similarly to Esora…" Miyu sniffled and laughed bitterly, pink eyes darting over to the green girl for just a moment. Esora, meanwhile, stared at her in surprise. Now that she finally had a fuller picture of what happened the night Kurumi died, her suspicions surrounding Lyrilily had been somewhat confirmed. "How cruel it is, we did the same thing and were equally unsuccessful…"

They were no closer to knowing who Kurumi's true first attacker was, and the trial was almost over.

AN: Tug-O-Word is a new minigame I came up with specifically for this fic just to spice it up a little. Let me know if you guys ever want me to try to think of other "minigames"!