"K-K-Kurumi…?!" Haruna's eyes bulged as she was the first to break the silence once the court was back in session.

"Th-there's no way someone as cute as you… is secretly evil…?" Noa whimpered, sounding betrayed.

"Oh, come on, Chairman, don't you remember earlier?" While Kurumi hid a smirk behind the tip of her hand, Miiko looked troubled.

Racing to find an answer, Saki was the first to remember, the word again spelling itself out in her brain. "The pranks!" The students turned to her. "F-f-from the… opening debate…" From part of Kurumi's alibi, about what she and Miiko were doing after Rinku's dinner party.

"Bingo!" Kurumi pointed at Saki. "You're good at this, girlie!"

"But- but- but- why, Kurumi, why?" Miyu begged, clasping her hands together in front of herself. "Is this your true nature?"

"The Killing Game was just getting so boring, y'know?" Kurumi shrugged. "Had to spice it up a little! Keep things interesting! And I'd say that I succeed!" She put her hands on her hips, smug.

"Cuz for the record, the fact that Nagisa was the one to fall into the trap was just as much a surprise to me as it was anyone else! In fact, even Miiko didn't know about this one! I actually made it after the one we made for our beloved Chairman! So… surprise, buddy!" Kurumi turned to Miiko and threw her arms open proudly. The others could only watch her in stunned silence, choking on their rage and disbelief.

Surely this had to be a lie, right? Right?! A prank?! Just some sort of sick, twisted, cruel joke?! It was indeed terrible, almost evil, but it was still hard to believe that Kurumi was the culprit. She'd always been rather impish, but this level of unhinged? It was new.

But… maybe it still wasn't as impossible as it seemed. "I am the Ultimate Prankster, after all!" If there was anything they could trust her on, it was her ability to pull off flawless pranks every single time. She could even dupe Miiko, her most loyal prank partner/protégée, with ease.

"Monochio was always going on and on about a motive, and all that," Kurumi continued "So I decided to speed things along, taking it into my own hands, as it were. You should be proud of me, Chairman! I was so proactive!"

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Shinobu snarled.

"Oh, nothing!" Kurumi chuckled again, shaking her head. "Except that my trap didn't go quite the way I planned!"

"…?!" Another stunned silence settled over the trial room.

"Th-there's more pranks?!" Tsubaki recoiled, disgusted by Kurumi's nonchalance.

"There was supposed to be!" Kurumi looked quite pleased by the question. "And that's what's got me so stumped! Why did Nagisa die so soon?"

"Die so soon?!"

"Don't you remember? What Noa said!" Kurumi jerked her chin at the other girl. "Nagisa was immobilized immediately, and that was correct, but she wasn't supposed to be killed like that. So, what happened….?" She tapped her chin and closed her eyes. "Who hijacked my trap?"

All around her, the rest of the trial room went into an uproar, demanding to know what the hell was wrong with her, and what the hell had happened to her. Noa looked anguished, torn between Kurumi's acknowledgement, and everything else that she was saying.

Kurumi's the culprit?! No way… She's too cute!

Others were in agreement, even if for different reasons. A liar like her suddenly pulling a wildcard move like this? No way it's not a bluff…

But others did believe that Kurumi was telling the truth. After all, who else would be capable? And why would she lie?

Or at the very least, they were interested in hearing what she had to say. Regardless of her guilt, why was she confessing so aggressively?

ooo

"Nyahahaha! Seems like you're all split down the middle!" Monochio cackled, interrupting the tense and silent standoff. "Alllrrrrighty then! Talents and Ultimates! Are you ready for a little something I call the… Debate Scrum?!"

Its tail arched over the back of its couch, grabbing a lever hidden behind it. The disc at the center of the trial room started to spin, pushing the podiums out into two opposing lines. The students cried out as the ground shifted beneath them, taking them with it. Some of them clutched at the podium railings while others clutched at their mouths and stomachs, looking nauseous.

Once every podium was in one of the two opposing lines, the disc spun in reverse, reeling them back in so that they were face to face.

"To get the obvious out of the way, can we even trust Kurumi to begin with?" Muni demanded.

"I know it has been difficult to trust her in the past," Rei acknowledged, "but what advantage does she have in lying?"

"It could be a prank for her own gratification!" Esora replied grimly, all too familiar with Kurumi's usual, childish behavior.

"But would Kurumi make a prank out of this?" Yuka asked. "Out of something so serious, I mean… It's a pretty big accusation."

"Unfortunately, she does not have the best track record for honesty," Tsubaki's eyes narrowed as she looked at Kurumi cautiously.

"But she is claiming that she killed Nagisa," Saki said. "Can we not explore her honesty by exploring the validity of her claim?"

"Of course not! Because the claim is baseless! She's too CUTE to kill anyone!" Noa cried. "Oh… wait… but Saki…! You're CUTE too!"

"Ain't nothing cute about that," Towa snorted. "If anything, it's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!"

"To be fair, even Icould've made a trap like that!" Rinku said thoughtfully.

"R-R-Rinku, I don't think that's something you want to blur out in a class trial," Maho chuckled nervously. "But that aside, you have an alibi. You were with Rei, Esora, and I in the music room!"

"I guess I'm just worried about the time limit," Saori confessed. "Can we really afford to get sidetracked by Kurumi's antics?"

"But if it is Kurumi, won't going off on a different tangent make our time limit even shorter?" Ibuki asked, and Saori cringed at herself.

"Wow you guys, I'm disappointed!" Rika crossed her arms and shook her head. "You really think your friends would be so quick to kill one another? Have a little more belief in them!"

"Belief or not, Kurumi's acting crazy. That's at least worth looking into!" Shinobu snorted.

"I guess I struggle to believe that it is Kurumi, because even though her pranks can be frustrating, they are always with good intention!" Miyu cried.

"Good intention or not, her earlier prank on Haruna shouldn't be ignored," Kyoko said grimy, thinking hard, finger on her chin.

"Maybe this is the motive Monochio was talking about?" Marika suggested fretfully. "Maybe it pushed Kurumi to this!"

"The only way we'll know for sure if it's the motive is if we let Kurumi speak," Hiiro said grimly.

"Just wish we didn't have to do it like this," Dalia admitted ruefully.

"I don't want to do this either," Aoi agreed. "But for Nagisa's sake…"

"W-w-wasn't Kurumi pulling pranks with Miiko, though?" Miiko whimpered, but even she didn't sound certain anymore.

"We will determine Kurumi's culpability as the trial continues," Haruna said.

"Yeah!" Kurumi cried, and no one could tell which side of the debate she was on. "Besides, Miiko, that could just be Kurumi's lie, couldn't it?!"

Even though the class had every reason to doubt Kurumi, they had just as many to hear her out, if only to refute her claims and give themselves some peace of mind. So, reluctantly, a majority voted in favor of allowing her to lead the next debate.

Monochio's tail swished behind its couch once more, grabbing the level and tugging it. The DJ disc in the center of the room spun round and round again, reeling the two lines of podiums back into their original, circular configuration around its circumference.

ooo

"Oh, God… Please don't let us ever do that again!" Saori sighed, still looking queasy as the podiums finished rotating back in place. "If that's what it actually feels like to be a DJ disc, then… I'm sorry!"

"Well then, first things first, I think some congratulations are in order!" Kurumi clapped, commanding the attention of the trial room. "You made it this far already, after all! That's gotta count for something!" She turned to Haruna. "I'm honestly surprised you didn't say anything sooner. Who else could've set up that type of device?"

"I did not wish to believe it," Haruna replied, grim and calm. "However, with your current behavior…"

"You've got no choice but to believe, eh Chairman?" Kurumi sneered, smirking with a hand on her lower lip again. "You see, everyone, I pranked her on the night of Nagisa's death. I was going to prank Nagisa too. Now that's my question. Why did it fail? It wasn't supposed to kill her…"

"It wasn't supposed to kill her?!" Muni echoed in disbelief. "You used all those big, strong ropes and sharp, metal hooks and then say you didn't think it would end badly?!" But while Muni shouted, Kurumi only shook her head with a calm, cold chuckle.

"The ropes weren't supposed to be what killed her. Like I told Tsubaki earlier, there was supposed to be more to that prank than just a simple rope trap. You can't honestly think I'd make a grand finale that short! Even Haruna's prank was longer than that! All of that to say, I'm certain someone is framing me! Someone found my prank before Nagisa, and manipulated it so that when she fell into it…"

"How can we believe anything you say?" Dalia demanded warily as Kurumi trailed off, eyes closed, hand on her chin.

"Right?!" Muni agreed, still beside herself. "Like, uhhh, thank u, NEXT! Let's just hurry up and vote her already!"

"I have proof! See?" Kurumi shoved her PheFo at the class, displaying photos of the metal hooks. They sagged under Nagisa's weight, but they did not break. "But that shouldn't be! I know before, you all looked at it as a sign that the hooks were strong, and that Nagisa was too weak to rip herself free. But I disagree! I see it as the opposite! And as the prank's master engineer, I should know!"

"What do you mean… opposite?" Haruna murmured, narrowing her eyes warily, studying her PheFo hard.

Kurumi again looked delighted by the question. "The hooks were sagging so badly that it's a miracle that they didn't just give way under the slightest of touches…" There was an unreadable smile on her face, and her eyes darted left.

Why is she looking at RONDO…? Saki thought back to the morning of the body discovery.

"It's as if she was waiting for us to rescue her!" Hiiro wept as she and Aoi lowered Nagisa from the trap, her body and several of the hooks coming away easily into their hands.

When Saki pointed it out, Aoi and Hiiro tensed up, eyes locking. Hiiro was dazed. What my grief-addled mind romanticized… was actually a clue…

The trap was designed to be escapable, that was why the hooks gave away so easily when Hiiro and Aoi pulled Nagisa free. So that begged the question of why Nagisa wasn't able to do the same, even accidentally. Even though the class could still argue the validity of such a claim, since it was coming from the Ultimate Prankster, she was admittedly of higher credibility regarding the nature of pranks than any of the rest of them.

Saki sweated bullets. Her silver eyes darted around the trial room, but there was no telltale flash of gold to indicate a truth, or a lie.

Oh, no! Have I lost the ability to read Kurumi?! Her heart rattled in her chest like a machinegun. Little did she know, someone else was rising to the challenge, for although the other girl did not have Synesthesia, she knew Kurumi better than Saki, and she could see things Saki could not.

"What're you up to, Chairman? Why are you looking at me like that?" Kurumi tapped the tips of her fingers together, smirking as Haruna scowled at her, hands on her hips. It genuinely pained the Ultimate Chairman to bear false witness, but sometimes, devils had to fight fire with fire.

"Kurumi. Why are you lying?" she asked.

"Lying? I'm not lying!" Kurumi spoke in a tone as untrustworthy as possible.

"The trap couldn't have been yours, because the rope had a tag on the end that was marked for the fourth floor, and I know you never went there!"

"The fourth floor…?" Kurumi hesitated. It was for a fraction of a second so short that only Haruna noticed, but it was exactly what she wanted and all she needed. Haruna had a theory, but she had to be careful in releasing it bit by bit so that even Kurumi couldn't get ahead of it and twist it into her own narrative. The only reason Saki noticed anything was because Haruna's words had suddenly turned a dark, vibrant purple.

A lie…? There was no tag on any of the ropes Nagisa was caught in, so Haruna's claim was easily disproven, unless she had an explanation prepared for that. But Haruna was fighting liars with liars. In revealing the alibi of the fourth floor for the sake of pranks, she was revealing that she had information that even Kurumi was unaware of, so it was in Kurumi's best interest to cease with her little games and answer the court directly. Even better, the only one who could confirm or deny Haruna's words would inherently confirm them if she said anything herself.

"Enough of your word-games, Kurumi," Haruna crossed her arms, and Saki realized why she couldn't see Kurumi's lies.

She makes sure to say things that aren't technically truth or lie. Or she makes claims that are solidly truths and solidly lies, so that it all balances out into a gray mess in the end. And it masked the gold of an inconsistency, a weak point. But as someone who had known Kurumi for years, Haruna didn't need Synesthesia to see right through the Ultimate Prankster.

"We won't be pulled down anymore of your rabbit holes. You've been trying to confuse us ever since the beginning. What are you hiding?!"

To the surprise of all, the Ultimate Prankster's partner/protegee was the one to finally break down. "MIIKO IS SORRY!"

The trial room was stunned into silence yet again and Saki watched Miiko unblinkingly. She's about to say something Kurumi doesn't want her to…

Sure enough, Kurumi shot Miiko a small scowl, but Miiko shook her head tearfully.

I'm sorry, Kurumi, but Miiko can't do it! I can't lie for you anymore! "The truth is…! I… killed… Nagisa…"