"What I want to know is… Just what was Kurumi doing on the sixth floor?" Esora was the first to break the silence, tone almost haughty and smug because of its gentle lilt, though the students couldn't tell if it was real or imagined on their part. The Ultimate Corporate Manager had her arms crossed, right arm up, resting her finger on her chin as her emerald eyes drifted shut.

Some of the students glared at her, and the audacity she had to try to lead a debate after everything she'd said and done. It was most unsettling because it was a known fact that Esora had yet to see a single memory of her own, motive video or Implememor-E. Despite that, she still mutilated Kurumi's corpse and lied about it, confessing only when enough of the students found enough evidence to force a confession out of her.

Her question was broad, addressed to everyone, but Miyu decided to step up to the plate, sensing that Esora was silently challenging her. Three answers flashed through her mind. I could be sarcastic and say it's none of her business, but then we wouldn't get anywhere. I could lie and say Kurumi was looking for Monochio, but I've foolishly jeopardized my credibility enough already…

The third and final option was to just to tell Esora the truth about Kurumi's obsession with the Implememor-Es, and it was the option Miyu ultimately chose, even though she wasn't comfortable trusting Esora with anything. Her only hope was that if they talked about the Implememor-Es, maybe Esora would say something that confirmed Miyu's suspicions about her potentially being a Mastermind. Esora claimed that the Shimizu family didn't touch things like memory-alerting devices, but as much as Miyu hated herself for asking, what if that was just a lie?

"Did she find anything of interest while there?" Esora asked. Clearly, Lyrilily wasn't the only one with vested interest in the memories.

"How are we supposed to know?" Haruna asked back immediately, and Miyu and Esora both turned to her in surprise, but her brown eyes were genuinely guarded and angry. Like Miyu, she didn't want to reveal too much to Esora, but that was because Haruna could sense that in the same way she and Miyu ewre trying to subtly interrogate Esora, Esora was doing likewise with them, a mutual game of cat-and-mouse where both sides played both roles. However, like Miyu, Haruna did wish to ask about the Implememor-Es, just not in a way that incriminated them, only Esora.

"My money's still on Esora," Muni scoffed, glaring warily at the green-haired, green-eyed girl as she, Haruna, and Miyu spoke. "Culprit or not! She's definitely been actinghella sus lately!"

"Muni!" Rei shot her a chiding, pleading look, though there was conflict in her eyes too, since Esora had confessed to desecrating Kurumi's corpse. Esora, how could you do something so disrespectful as defiling the dead? You of all people ought to understand the sacred nature of life and body! How many times did we go to the temple together, or act as a pair of shrine maidens?

Esora, meanwhile, was having much more fun flexing her superiority over Muni. Please! The tip of my pinkie is worth more than all your assets combined! Her outward expression did not change from its neutral pensiveness, and she didn't even glance at the Ultimate Illustrator.

"H-hey! If you're so rich, couldn't you at least afford to pay some attention to us?!" Muni snapped, hands on her hips.

No, I'm rich enough to afford more than the cheapest of stolen insults and cliché jokes. I'm ALSO rich enough to afford common sense. I don't pay pennies for thoughts because I demand intelligence of only the highest quality.

"I must confess, though, if there is one thing I still would like to ask Esora…" Haruna began slowly, touching the side of her face as she looked fretful, trying to be conscientious about her words. "The resources it must require to operate this Killing Game are surely exorbitant. Who else could organize it except someone with connections and influence to rival yours?"

Anyone able to attend Arisugawa was filthy, stinking rich, but not everyone was the only-child of two powerful businesspeople that created, and now ran, a technological empire of a robotics company. Esora, meanwhile, only smirked.

"While I understand where you are coming from—" the Ultimate Corporate Manager began.

"Oh, so you'll respond to her, huh?!" Muni's hands were still on her hips. "Another rich girl?!" Esora continued to ignore her. So did everyone else.

"I believe there is a certain clue from the end of the last trial that would help shed light in this one." Her green eyes searched her half of the trial room. Clockwise, there was M4, Photon, and Peaky. They would've been the only ones who even had a chance to see the clue Esora was hinting at, but that was still half the student body. Maybe Lyrilily had to sit this one out, but someone else already had an answer.

Oh! Wait a minute! I think I know this one! Wait, wait, wait! Why does it sound so familiar?! Towa squeezed her eyes closed and clenched her hands into fists as she cleared the clutter from her mind. She imagined herself literally sweeping away the blocks and bits that obscured the image her mind was trying to conjure up, and finally, she saw a metal sheet with a logo stamped into it.

"Oh! The Towa Conglomerate!" she cried. When everyone looked at her, surprised that she, of all people, figured out the answer to Esora's riddle, Towa also seemed to realize how incriminating the clue sounded, just because of its name. "Oh, hey, wait a minute. You all don't think I had anything to do with this, right?" She waved her hand frantically and chuckled nervously.

"I may not possess that much technological prowess on my own, but you do need at least a rudimentary understanding of things such as math, science, physics, engineering, manufacturing, and robotics," Esora said. Exactly as she expected, and as it amused her to see, Towa was too stupid to notice the insult in Esora's remark. It had gone right over her blue-haired, empty head. "As for the Towa Conglomeration, I must confess that the name does sound slightly familiar, but I can tell from the scarcity and haze of the memories that mine were stripped from me. I should remember more than I do. All I know is that they were a rival tech company to my family's, so of course I would never work with them!"

Unfortunately, none of them remembered many details about the Towa Conglomerate either. It was strange, whatever memories Monochio took from them, they were all always highly targeted and specific. They had enough to remember their childhoods together, as in the case of Miyu and Esora, but Esora couldn't remember her family company's biggest rival beyond the vaguest of recollections.

With that particular line of inquiry dead in the water because of the unanimous lack of knowledge surrounding the Towa Conglomerate, the students returned to their PheFos to search for the next clue to discuss.

"Hey, Esora… By the way, how did you move Kurumi from the computer lab to the dining hall in the first place?" Kyoko muttered.

"Bed sheet," Esora replied with a grim smile. "I will have to clean it. It is currently under my bed, filthy while I shiver!" Her words elicited a shiver from some of her peers. How could she be so conversational about what she'd done?!

At that moment, Haruna piped up, having scrolled through her PheFo far enough. Here! "Ahem! Could everyone please take a look at this?" She held out her PheFo and showed… a blurry photo of the underside of one of Kurumi's arms, with a small pink dot on it?

"Ehh… Haruna… I don't have that one," Saori muttered, looking embarrassed as she scrolled through her photo gallery too. At first, she felt like an idiot for not having the photo, but then one by one, other students agreed with her.

"Hey! I don't have it either!" Muni cried.

"Me neither," Shinobu nodded grimly. The last photo in every gallery was three before the one Haruna was showing.

"Oh, silly me!" Haruna slapped her forehead, looking mortified. "I must have forgotten to upload them to the evidence app!"

"Haruna…" Tsubaki sighed and shook her head, hands on her hips. She was bad with tech too, but not that bad! Only Rei was arguably worse. Honestly, if not for the technologically inept section of the class, Towa would be far more solidly known as the dumbest of the group.

"So… like, how are you a DJ if you're this bad at tech?" Rika asked innocently.

Ok, maybe it's not just the technologically inept. Tsubaki gave Rika a deadpanning look while Aoi gave Rika a sheepish laugh.

"Rika! You can't just ask people why they're DJs!" Hiiro touched her face with a sigh.

"I-i-in any case, if you look, I noticed what appears to be a tiny puncture wound on her arm!" Haruna tried to steer them back on track.

"A tiny puncture wound?" Yuka echoed, leaning forward and squinting as she struggled to see the image Haruna was holding up. She winced. Oh, the poor dear, her photography techniques are so poor that they're nonexistent! Has she ever even seen a camera before?

"You can't honestly think something that small did her in!" Muni crossed her arms and shook her head.

"Well, the wound itself was not the point of concern," Haruna chuckled embarrassedly at her classmates' uncanny ability to blatantly miss giant clues. "Think, what sort of weapon could've caused an injury so tiny? And understand why that might be a concern…"

Some of the students exchanged questioning glances, but in the end, all of them closed their eyes and thought, the word slowly spelling itself out in their minds. NEEDLE.

Miyu looked at Haruna again out of the corner of her eye, doing her best to convey surprise and confusion without giving herself away.

Haruna did likewise, trying to convey her messages with her eyes. I know it is an unprecedented risk to address an incident so adjacent to our own; however, we are getting nowhere speaking of memories, technology, and Esora. We MUST find Kurumi's true first attacker, whether it is Esora or not. The only way to do that going forward is to hint more directly at what I believe to be Kurumi's intended, first cause of death.

The trial was about to get a whole heck of a lot more convoluted and crazy, but wasn't that half the fun and excitement? As a certain robot mascot of a certain Talented high school would say, "thrills, chills, kills!"

Trial Intermission.

AN: Just wanted to try my hand at the parts of class trials that AREN'T dialog heavy (ex: minigames like Hangman's Gambit, Logic Dive, Mind Mine, multiple-choice questions, selecting a student etc).