"Shinobu?!" The entire trial room cried out, but none as loudly as Peaky. Kyoko even turned around as if to step off her podium.
"Shan't be necessary," Monochio said flatly. Its tail seemed to appear out of nowhere, curling around the back of Shinobu's shirt and lifting her up.
"H-hey! Put me down you dumb, stupid, fucking, piece of shit!" Shinobu howled, legs kicking violently as she soared over her classmates' heads. Monochio did not release Shinobu until she was dangling half a foot over her podium, then it dropped her unceremoniously inside.
"Shinobu! Where the hell have you been?!" Muni cried, hands on her hips.
"Where the fuck do you think?" Shinobu grumbled, wincing as pain lanced through her feet.
"But what took you so long to get back to us?" Kyoko demanding, upset. I don't see any injuries on her, but who knows what she may be hiding?!
"Or at the very least, how didn't any of us find you sooner?" A sharp contrast, Rika sounded guilty and apologetic.
Before Shinobu could answer any of them, ALTER-EGO's low, threatening tone interrupted them all. Shinobu turned to him in surprise as he crossed his arms and scowled at her. Fear the Smiling, Shining White Knight! Aoi's undefeated, undisputed champion!
"So this is the little punk I have to thank for everything?" the Ultimate Protector growled.
"Woah… Aoi? Pfft! The hell is wrong with you?" Shinobu scoffed up at her disdainfully, completely unafraid and unintimidated.
"It's, ah, kind of a long story," Yuka chuckled nervously. "Promise I'll explain later!"
"Well be sure to practice before you do because what you said literally explained nothing," Shinobu deadpanned. "How am I supposed to participate in the class trial if nobody will explain what the heck is going on here?!" she whined impatiently, throwing up her arms in frustration.
"Dissociative Identity Disorder," Hiiro finally interjected politely. "Aoi was nearly stabbed to death last night, and her eye taken…"
ALTER-EGO again rolled up his sleeves, opened his shirt, and this time pushed up the bandages wrapped around his head.
"Jesus Christ!" Shinobu hissed and recoiled in disgust. ALTER-EGO chuckled darkly as he lowered the pink-stained bandages again.
"The trauma of the attack triggered a second personality, an alter, and he's been with us ever since. He is ALTER-EGO," Hiiro finished the intro.
For a moment, Shinobu could only gawk, eye twitching. Sounded fake as shit to her. It admittedly didn't make sense for someone like Aoi to malinger, but believing her just seemed so surreal! More importantly, though, Shinobu just didn't have time to care about Aoi. She had to care about herself. All eyes were on Shinobu, and she was still wielding a bloody knife… Everyone was going to be gunning for her now.
Talk about bringing knives and swords to a word-fight! she thought with a dark smile as she prepared for her showdown with Aoi.
"The evidence is obvious," ALTER-EGO began haughtily, face disinterested as he raised one palm up in a half-shrug. "You attacked Aoi!"
"Oh, please, are you really saying that just because you got a few puncture wounds?" Shinobu scoffed; a gutsy thing to say, but she needed time!
"Of course not," ALTER-EGO sneered. "But unless you can prove otherwise… you can't deny the corner you're backed into!" He pointed a damning finger at Shinobu, and she grit her teeth as their words clashed and collided.
"Just because I happen to have a knife?" she scoffed. "What if I told you I never used it?"
"I would ask for your accompanying evidence."
"Well, if you want something measurable, then why don't we start with…?" Aoi's injuries.
Shinobu cut through ALTER-EGO's icy taunts. If it was proof he wanted, it was proof she had. She raised her knife. The students closest to her flinched and shied away from her and Shinobu shot them all an exasperated look.
Seriously?! They KNOW I'm one of the students most against killing! And even if I wasn't, do they really think I'd be so stupid as to try to attack—let alone kill—any of them with Monochio RIGHT THERE?!
"Just look at the tip!" she cried frustratedly, brandishing the knife.
"Just the tip?" Hiiro asked, raising her eyebrows innocently. Tsubaki shot her a look while ALTER-EGO smirked and Rika snickered. What Shinobu was trying to get them to see was that Aoi's stab wounds did not match the size or shape of her knife. The PheFo photos backed up her claim.
"Good show, Shinobu, you are astute," ALTER-EGO slow-clapped and smirked.
"Wait. Don't tell me you knew all along…?" Shinobu demanded warily. "You're the one who accused me in the first place!" Was it supposed to be some kind of stupid test of character?! ALTER-EGO didn't reply, instead only tilting his head as he continued to tease Shinobu.
"Wait a minute," Yuka breathed, scrolling through her PheFo. "Every injury we've documented can say the same thing!" The Ultimate Photographer's sharp eyes identified that every stab wound on every body was roughly the same size and shape, and none of it looked like a knife wound. They were all too large and round.
"Now that you mention it…" Esora grabbed her wrist and winced. The cut was jagged. If it had been a knife, it should've been at least a little smoother. Gruesome and hard as it was to check, the same could be said of Rei's severed leg, and Hiiro's ear.
"So… what was the weapon …?" Towa asked quietly, and Rinku, who'd studied the images as intently as she could, was the first to reply.
"I think I know!" she murmured, the light of her PheFo reflecting in her dark red eyes. "Spears! Or more specifically, sticks." Maybe it was sus for her to even suggest such an idea, but of course the Ultimate Explorer was familiar with sharpened sticks and their appearances and functions.
It wasn't just the size and shape of the wounds, though. Another feature of the stab wounds was that all of them were rimmed with dirt. Even if they could say that a knife could get dirty while being used in the forest, for every single stab wound on every single victim to have bark, dirt, and mud around it? Well, it made a lot more sense when the students imagined a sharpened branch as the weapon rather than a kitchen knife.
Unfortunately, that still left the class with two, glaring problems. The first was the sheer difficulty in identifying who might've used the alleged spear weapon. The next was that even if Shinobu was cleared of suspicion in terms of murder culpability, she still wasn't cleared of suspicion overall. Kyoko was even the one to first ask why it took her so long to regroup with the rest of class.
"H-hey! Why're you so sus of me?!" Shinobu snarled, rearing away from Muni, one of her most persistent prosecutors.
"Please! As if you wouldn't do a total Uno Reverse if you could!" Muni crossed her arms and turned up her nose at the other short, angry girl.
Shinobu clenched her teeth and hands in return. As much as she hated to admit it, Muni wasn't exactly wrong. But Shinobu was telling the truth! As sus as she looked, the reason she was gone so long—and the reason she still had the knife—was because after Kyoko was done chasing her away from Towa, Shinobu eventually found herself staring down the giant fence that surrounded the entire academy.
"And I just— I don't know… I… blacked out…" Rage overtook her once more, and although she did not remember attempting to attack the fence, what else could explain why she suddenly woke up the next morning lying only a foot or two away from it, groggy and sore? "I'm sure I would've died if I actually hit a fence like that, especially with a metal knife, but I really was unconscious the entire time!"
Shinobu rubbed her sore head ruefully. At the very least, it was evident that she had not been attacked. She was in one piece, uninjured, the blood splatters on her knife and shirt not her own. And as they'd already established, all the stab wounds on the victims of the most violent attacks did not match up with a knife. Unfortunately, there was no one to confirm her alibi. As she'd noted, all of this happened after she lost Kyoko.
Leave it to me! "Hang on, everyone, I think I can answer this!" Kyoko interrupted, surprising everyone, especially Shinobu.
"Kyoko. What are you doing?!" Shinobu whispered through her teeth. Was Peaky trying to win the award of Sussiest Baka? First there was everything Esora did to Kurumi's body in the previous class trial. Then there was Shinobu in this one. And now Kyoko?!
"I just need to prove that Shinobu couldn't have done it, right?" Kyoko continued, almost grinning at the thought of the challenge, though there was also a grim and determined glint in her peachy-brown eyes. It was time for another nonstop debate.
"Even if Shinobu isn't the killer… We can at least all agree that her having a knife is suspicious, right?" Muni demanded.
"But what's the point of this line of inquiry if you agree that I'm not the killer?!" Shinobu cried, shaking her fist at Muni.
"We did it last trial to Esora, it's only fair we do it again here and now," Rika said grimly, arms crossed. Shinobu's eyes widened.
"While I agree that Shinobu should prove her innocence if she can, what do you propose would even suffice as evidence?" Esora furrowed her eyebrows. Unfortunately, the deck was stacked rather high against the Ultimate Gamer…
"W-well, I guess… Does anyone remember seeing her attacking at any point in time?" Towa asked, one eye shut as she tapped her chin.
"Didn't you hear the victims earlier?" Tsubaki frowned. "None of them remember their attacker!"
"Oh… right…" Towa wilted. There went that idea. Or so she thought.
I hear it! "I agree with that!" Kyoko pointed at Towa, and she straightened up, eyes shining.
"Man, I am on a roll today!" she beamed. "Wait. What are we talking about again, Kyoko?" she smiled sheepishly at the other girl while several others shot Towa deadpanning expressions. Shinobu even face-palmed.
"Remember, Towa?" Kyoko smiled ruefully at her. "You and I saw Shinobu with the knife…"
"Oh, that's right!" Towa gasped.
"And just how did you forget that?!" Noa cried, alarmed.
"Well it's because I'm not dead," Towa smiled sheepishly again. "Plus, Shinobu didn't even really hurt me that much! Kyoko saved me before she could!" The blue-haired girl shot the brunette a relieved smile and a big thumbs up while Noa raised her eyebrows.
"Actually, Towa, I think you saved yourself," Kyoko chuckled.
"Aww, Kyoko!" Towa rested a hand over her heart, touched. "I'm not going to let you not take credit for—"
"N-no, that's not what I meant!" Kyoko waved her hands and laughed again. "What I mean is… I think Shinobu's too small to be guilty."
"Hey! Sometimes size doesn't matter, you know?!" Shinobu interjected crossly. "I've spent hours tracking people down in combat games!"
"Not really helping your case, Shino," Kyoko observed dryly. Shinobu pouted but shut her mouth again. As insulting as Kyoko sounded, though, she was being serious. By the time she got to Shinobu, Towa was doing a surprisingly good job of holding her off on her own. If Shinobu couldn't even win in a fight against Towa, how on earth had she supposedly subdued anyone else? There was also one more thing…
"Yamate, tell us!" Esora encouraged.
"With your permission," Kyoko replied, meeting Shinobu's eyes. "Something you just said reminded me of it. It's about your Talent."
Shinobu's eye twitched. The class could've heard a pin drop. For a moment, they could all only wait with bated breath. Would Shinobu give her blessing, or not? Would Kyoko be allowed to speak, or would they hit a deadlock?
Shinobu finally managed to choke out a small insult. "Well now that you've gone and insinuated something, you might as well grow a pair and finish what you started!" she growled self-consciously, suddenly unable to meet anyone's eyes even though she was scowling, arms crossed.
"Shinobu said it earlier," Kyoko smiled apologetically at her before turning to the rest of the class. "At first, I thought it would incriminate her, talking about hunting down students in a fighting game, but then I remembered… Shinobu is the Ultimate FPS Gamer."
It was a big reveal, but for a moment, it seemed so small that no one said a word, waiting for Kyoko to continue.
"Th-that's it?!" Shinobu cried. "That's the only reaction you've got?! To any of this?!"
"W-well, we always knew that, Shinobu," Miyu said gently. "The Ultimate Gamer? Ever since Day One—"
"No, not the Ultimate Gamer," Kyoko interrupted grimly. "The Ultimate FPS Gamer." It seemed like a difference so small that it was negligible, but as Shinobu said, sometimes size didn't matter, and to Kyoko, this was a theory that was as credible as Shinobu's shortness acting as a barrier for her being the culprit. "She specializes in shooting games, not knife games."
"B-b-but why lie about something like that?" Saori was confused.
"I mean…" Shinobu snorted at her and gestured at herself. "Killing Game… Gun-based Talent… School… Classmates…" She made finger guns and pretended to fire them off. Ah. Right. It was almost laughable. No. Wait. It was definitely laughable.
"No way. You're kidding! You mean you honestly suck with knives just because you're a gunner gamer?! GIT GUD SHINOOB!" Muni howled. Shinobu seethed again, but unfortunately, Muni was right. Obviously, weapons in video games were very different than weapons IRL, but the Ultimate FPS Gamer had a knack for guns. Likewise, both her Talent and her natural shortness meant that close-ranged, close-quarters combat was more dangerous for her than long-ranged warfare (i.e. guns).
None of it was much on its own, but taken together, every conjecture pointed back to the physical impossibility of Shinobu being the culprit. It was painfully ironic. She once thought her Talent might've marked her as a black sheep, a suspicious individual among the class, and yet here Kyoko had just used Shinobu's Talent to prove her innocence! It was the most insulting moment of Shinobu's life, but if it cleared her name, she'd take it. Unfortunately, that meant they were just as unaware of the identity of the true culprit as they had been at the start of the class trial.
AN: Yeah, consider Shinobu the Maki Harukawa of this trial LOL