All the participants were confused about what had happened. It had been reasoned that Tanjiro and his accomplice had been responsible for Hikari's attack and death, and that the accomplice had betrayed Tanjiro to become the blackened. But the trial's focus had turned from Hikari's death to Tanjiro's, and now, it seemed that they had uncovered his killer at last.

"I swear, I didn't kill him!" Kumi said, quivering. "I-I was with the others in the upper theater room when we heard the killer strike him with the bowling ball from below! So I couldn't have done it!"

"True… It was possible for you to kill Tanjiro in the upper theater room and smuggle his body to the lower theater room," Haruyuki said. "But… to fake his time of death, you must've struck his body with the bowling ball. And I doubt that you could kill him from below."

"Yes, the stack of boxes lying next to Tanjiro's corpse would've blocked his aim," Mari said. "But in that case, how was that sound made?"

"Someone must've sneaked into the room and struck his corpse!" Kasumi said. "But we all have alibis, don't we?!"

"Obviously, we're missing something," Maiha replied. "Perhaps there was another way for the foolish make-believer to pull it off… a way to strike the corpse from afar."

"N-No! You have it all wrong!" Kumi said, shaking. "U-Unless you're saying someone else had magic and misused it..."

Hmm… Was there a way? Masashi thought. Or is the culprit actually someone else?

Nonstop Debate

"The little fellow was in the upper theater room around the time when Tanjiro sneaked there, wasn't he?" Sorao said.

"And only he had the opportunity to smuggle his body to the lower theater room," Maiha added. "He entered both rooms a few times, as shown by the security logs."

"B-But we heard the murderer strike Tanjiro!" Kumi gainsaid. "A-And at that time, I was with you guys!"

"That said, it doesn't matter that you had an alibi," Haruyuki said. "But what matters is that we heard the bowling ball."

"So in other words, he may have found a way to make the bowling ball strike Tanjiro," Maiha said. "Perhaps with a device of some kind."

"I-I don't know what you're talking about!" Kumi insisted. "That sounds an awful lot like magic, but I can't do anything like that!"

Truth Bullet Chosen (Agree): Toy Car

I agree with that!

"Maiha, I think you're on the mark about this," Masashi said. "There was a device that Kumi could've used."

"Wh-What?" Kumi said, waxing pale.

"I'm talking about a certain toy car that we found near Tanjiro's corpse," he explained. "Until now, its presence in the crime scene had been left unexplained… but I think it's clear what role it was used in the crime."

"Used? Wait…" Faye said. "Don't tell me that you think that…"

Masashi nodded. "We all know that Tanjiro's body was found lying by the stack of boxes. But isn't the stack climbable?"

"Don't tell me!" Sayua blurted out. "You think he put the bowling ball and the car on top of it?!"

"It's possible," he replied. "He placed them in such a way that if the car were driven forward, it would push the ball off the stack and make it land on Tanjiro's corpse!"

The others gasped.

"You mean… that's the trick that he used?" Maiha said, utterly astounded.

"It certainly makes some sense," Mari replied. "The car is remote-controlled, so the killer could control the car while standing far up high."

"B-But that doesn't make any sense!" Kumi protested. "Th-The remote control… you found it at the crime scene, right? H-How did it get there, if you said I had it on me in the upper theater room?"

"Ah, that's right!" Faye said. "We saw the remote control as soon as we found Tanjiro's corpse, so there's no way that he could've planted it right there and then."

"Unless..." Haruyuki said, stroking his chin. "He had a way to put it there before we even entered the lower theater room."

Wait a minute... Masashi thought. This is like the problem of smuggling Tanjiro's corpse to that room... I think I see it now!

"Kumi... you used the same trick twice, didn't you?" Masashi answered. "As the others have said, you were standing by the railing around the time the bowling ball was pushed off the stack... so once you heard the sound of the bowling ball hitting Tanjiro, you simply threw the control down, and it landed near the corpse."

"N-No!" he squealed, looking more and more exasperated.

"Sure, I guess he could've done it..." Sorao said. "We heard a variety of things falling onto the floor after we heard the bowling ball strike Tanjiro. The remote control could've been one of them."

"And we were paying little heed to Takumi during the time," Maiha added. "It was possible for him to throw the remote control while undetected."

"So that's it, then!" Sayua exclaimed. "That's the damn trick he used!"

"It's too bad for him that its presence at the crime scene still signaled that the car was still involved somehow," Haruyuki said with a stoic expression. "It's unfortunate that it has come to this, but it's all clear how he did it."

"A-All clear…?"

Clutching his teddy bear in his hands, Kumi shook his head profusely.

"It's not all clear!" he protested. "Y-You still haven't explained one thing!"

"One thing?" Masashi said.

"Th-The blood!" he answered, putting up a somewhat firm expression. "If I had killed Tanjiro in the upper theater room with the club… then there would've been a lot of blood! But when Sir Sorao entered the room, there was none, right?!"

Sorao widened his eyes. "That's right… I may have smelled it, but I certainly didn't see any. It's one thing to miss the tiny speck of blood on the club, but it's another to miss a puddle, you know."

"Well, so fucking what?!" Sayua replied, clenching her hand into a fist. "You simply wiped it all off!"

"But with what?" Haruyuki pointed out. "There is nothing in either of the theater rooms that could be used for that purpose."

Wait a minute… This also feels awfully familiar, Masashi thought. Yeah, of course it feels that way… We talked about it not too long ago!

"Don't forget, in the beginning, we figured out that Tanjiro and his accomplice had wiped away Hikari's blood in the music room," Masashi said. "And it had been done with a red curtain from the staff lounge."

Kasumi yelped. "Oh! Come to think of it, where did that curtain go?!"

"I don't think we've ever figured that out," Maiha said. "It wasn't in the staff lounge during the investigation, yes? Then perhaps... Tanjiro took it along with him after he created the locked room mystery in the staff lounge and escaped through the vent."

"What?" Sayua said. "But why would he take it with him?"

"Perhaps… he was planning to dispose of it. Maybe he was planning to burn it in the kitchen or something," Sorao suggested, glancing to the side with a wary expression. "Either way, just leaving the curtain there would've made the cover-up pretty obvious."

"I suppose that is plausible," Maiha said as she grew less skeptical. "In any case, if Tanjiro had the curtain on him as he crawled out of the vent, that fool of a storyteller could simply use the curtain to wipe away the blood."

"B-But...!" Kumi said. "Even if I'd used it, I must've hidden it somewhere, r-right? But you guys never found the red curtain, did you?"

"Well… no," Haruyuki said. "I am confident that we thoroughly combed through the ship, and yet we found no trace of it."

Kasumi let out a groan of bemusement. "Oh man, this is giving me a headache! Maybe he tossed it off the ship?"

"Nope, I can assure you that it hasn't been lost to the seas!" Monokuma said. "It's... somewhere... Well, I'd give you more, but I can't think of any helpful hints."

"For real?! Can't you think harder than that?!" Kasumi said, sounding quite desperate.

"Forget about it, that bastard's just playing around with us!" Sayua said.

As the others murmured in confusion over where the red curtain might be, Kumi let out a sigh of relief. At this point, Masashi had no doubt that he was hiding something about the murder, even if he were not the killer. Sad as it was to do it, he had to uncover his secret.

Where did Kumi manage to hide the red curtain? Masashi thought. He was busy moving Tanjiro's body, so I doubt he had a chance to hide it in a tricky place… Come on, think!

Hangman's Gambit

Question: Where is the red curtain hidden?

?-?-?-?-?-?-?

The Moonlight City was separated from the other ships, so Kumi must've hidden it somewhere on the ship.

S-?-?-?-?-?-?

But everyone searched the whole ship, and no one found the curtain anywhere.

S-A-?-?-?-?-?

So Kumi must've hidden it somewhere that no one has searched!

S-A-T-C-H-?-?

Come to think of it, no one has searched Kumi's belongings!

S-A-T-C-H-E-L

He must've hidden it in his satchel after using it to get rid of the blood!

SATCHEL

"That's it!" Masashi cried out. "Kumi, you won't mind letting us go through your satchel, right?"

The moment that he said that, Kumi's face waxed paler than ever.

"I-I… I don't understand!" he said, fastening his grip on his satchel's strap. "Wh-Why do you want to look in there? I-It's nothing but my writing supplies!"

"For one, you wear that thing all the time," he explained. "And if one were to fold the curtain, I'd imagine it would be small enough to fit in that bag."

It was then that the others let out a gasp of realization.

"Kumi… that satchel of yours… don't tell me that you're actually hiding it there!" Kasumi said.

"I… I… I say you're wrong!" he said, whimpering. "You don't need to look inside!"

"Enough with your protests. If you're innocent, then let us examine its contents," Maiha said bluntly, looking completely uncaring at all.

"Kumi, please…" Mari said, facing him. "Hand me the satchel. At this point, if you won't agree, everyone will doubt you."

At first, Kumi looked around here and there, as if trying to find an ally amid his fellow participants. But his search must have turned vain, for no hope entered his face. Eventually, letting out a little sob, he took off his satchel and handed it to Mari, who opened it slowly.

"Let's see…"

She took out the contents one by one. They ranged from bottles of ink, a plastic bag holding what looked like a brownie, a perfume bottle, and his teddy bear. Eventually, however, Mari took out what looked like a great red cloth, and though it was hard to tell at first, one could notice a few great red stains on it.

"No way… It's blood!" Kasumi said. "That's the curtain, all right!"

"So it's true…!" Sorao said with amazement in his eyes and voice. "The little fellow was hiding it on him all along!"

"Yes, and by the way, this perfume bottle must be the same one that Tanjiro and his accomplice used to hide the scent of blood in the music room," Mari replied as she put the items back into his satchel. "It's unfortunate that this had to happen... but we have more than enough proof."

"Well, Kumi?" Masashi said softly, even though he now faced him seeking nothing but a confession. "Could you explain everything to us at last?"

"I… I…"

Kumi stopped for a moment.

"I… I would never choose to kill Tanjiro, really," he said, looking downwards as if afraid to meet the others' gazes. "B-But it was a dark fairy... It cast a spell on me and made me kill him!"

It had already been made clear, but to hear those words from the horse's mouth drew gasps from everyone. To see such an innocent-looking child essentially confess to the heinous crime of murder smote Masashi's heart with sorrow.

"So it's all true!" Kasumi said, her voice cracking.

"I can't believe it... Kumi's a killer!" Faye said, gaping.

"Oh my God, no!" Sorao exclaimed woefully as he covered his eyes with both hands. "I can't believe it... How could you, little fellow?!"

Maiha scoffed, the only one among them who looked as caring as she would about stepping on an ant. "How unsurprising, really... I suspected that you would end up a victim or a killer... The only unfortunate thing is the massive time you've wasted with your efforts."

"You really surprise me with your apathy," Haruyuki remarked coolly.

"I have no need to speak kindly to such a loathsome and foolish killer as he," she replied bluntly as she shot the guilty storyteller an unkind glare.

"Why…?" Sayua said with great disdain. "Why did you do it…? Why did you kill him?"

"I-It wasn't me, I swear!" Kumi insisted pathetically. "You have to believe me! The dark fairy was sent by the evil warlock—"

"STOP FUCKING WITH ME, GODDAMNIT!"

As she said the last part of her sentence, Sayua slammed her hand on the podium with a fist.

"Fuck off with blaming your made-up bullshit!" she declared, looking completely unwilling to brook his pathetic explanation. "You killed Tanjiro with your own hands, goddamnit, and I'll kill you with my own!"

"Now, now, Sayua, there is no need for such aggression," Haruyuki said, looking mostly unfazed. "Let us approach this peacefully, shall we?"

"Yes... given the circumstances, one can understand your frustration," Maiha added with a soft tone, "but your violence is, at the very least, needless."

Masashi could not think of anything to say. There was the same sense of tragedy that he had felt upon in the previous cases when the killers had finally confessed to their crimes. But this time, he could not but focus on how Kumi, until now, had always seemed like an innocent little boy mixed up in these unfortunate circumstances. Even with Kumi's guilt, Masashi wanted to believe that there was still some part of him that was of good nature.

"Once again, Kumi, why did you kill him?" Mari asked calmly.

Kumi, having shrunk after hearing Sayua's threat, stayed silent for a moment before he gulped.

"I-I don't remember it all too clearly, but…" he began sheepishly. "I think I went to the upper theater room by myself after Lady Faye's cooking session was done."

"Ah, yes, the cooking session," Haruyuki said. "By the way, Faye, was he doing anything suspicious during then?"

Faye shook her head. "No, I don't think so... I had my eye on him pretty much the whole time, and I didn't see him use anything suspicious. He used only the kitchen tools and a few unremarkable-looking flavoring bottles for my cooking."

"And I think the little fellow offered me one of his treats, but I had to refuse, sadly enough," Sorao added. "So what happened after you headed to the upper theater room, buddy?"

"Um... I think I'd been simply standing around when… Tanjiro… he popped out of the vent…" Kumi answered, shaking. "H-He was holding the perfume bottle and the curtain in his hands…"

"Then what?"

"My memory's hazy on that part, but... I remember... I wound up hitting Tanjiro with the club," he answered. "H-He fell back and struck one of the suits of armor… and the next thing I knew, he was lying on the floor… his head was bleeding, and the blood was getting onto the floor! That was enough to make me see that I'd killed him…"

"And then you panicked, hid the body in the suit of armor as a temporary solution, wiped away the blood, and devised the scheme to fake his time of death," Haruyuki said.

"Did you not notice that there was already blood on the curtain, however?" Mari asked. "That is, Hikari's blood. Tanjiro and his accomplice had used it to rid the music room of her blood as part of hiding the scene of the crime."

He shook his head timidly. "N-No... I was panicking at the time, so I didn't really take a close look."

"And the curtain was red... I guess it was natural that the blood was hard to notice," Masashi said.

Kumi trembled as he looked here and there. "I-I'm sorry… I didn't want to do it, but I didn't want to admit that I was the blackened! I-I couldn't forget what happened to Lady Haruka, Sir Abraham, and Arashi… I didn't want that to happen to me! I still want to live!"

"That's all you have to fucking say? 'I'm sorry'?" Sayua said, looking at him with nothing but disgust. "Because of you… Tanjiro's gone... forever… And you think your shitty excuse of an apology will change of that?!"

"Not to mention how unclear his explanation was," Maiha said. "We don't even know why he even struck Tanjiro in the first place."

"Perhaps that was what he planned all along!" Sayua said. "I always knew he didn't like him... wouldn't surprise me if he had always wanted to kill him!"

"I should not be surprised if that were true," Haruyuki said, "but given the circumstances in which Tanjiro appeared in the upper theater room, I find it hard to believe that Takumi had already planned to kill him right there and then."

"True, Tanjiro went there as part of his involvement in Hikari's attack," Mari said, "and I don't think that Kumi knew about it."

"Reason for killing... whether he planned to kill Tanjiro all along... does it matter, really?"

Sorao looked quite placid, despite having earlier shown great sorrow at this revelation. "We've reached the end of the line."

"We have?" Kasumi said.

"Yep. Remember, you heard the sound of Tanjiro knocking down that armor before you found Hikari alive in the staff lounge, right?" he replied. "Tanjiro's death, in other words, must have happened before Hikari's."

"And according to the rules, the blackened is the one who caused the earlier death…" Maiha added. "Hence, Takumi Takamitsu must be the blackened."

The others gasped upon being reminded of this.

"Then... is this it?!" Kasumi said. "Is this really the end of the class trial?!"

"But what about Hikari's death?" Faye asked. "We still haven't uncovered her killer, have we?"

"Indeed, but we may not need to uncover the whole truth," Haruyuki answered. "We can still talk about it after we're done with the class trial and have ensured our own safety."

"I-I..." Kumi muttered, but he said no more as the others grew keener and keener to get to Voting Time already.

Nonstop Debate

"It's all clear now!" Sorao said confidently. "The little fellow is Tanjiro's killer! He's even confessed to it!"

"Yes, he struck Tanjiro, which caused the suit of armor to fall over in that instance," Maiha said. "That corroborates the time of death."

"And he's admitted to faking his time of death by using the toy car," Faye said.

"There's no room for doubt, really," Sorao said. "There are no more clues left to discuss in Tanjiro's case."

"But what about Hikari's killer?" Kasumi said. "We still haven't figured out who it is, have we?"

"It's a shame that we can't find out right now," Haruyuki said, "but it doesn't matter. All the rules say is that the killer who killed first is the blackened."

"Well, that's that!" Sorao said gladly. "Looks like all the loose ends in Tanjiro's death have been tied!"

Truth Bullet Chosen (Refute): Bloody Handprints

No, that's wrong!

"Hang on, everyone," Masashi said, even though he too was unsure as to what it meant. "There's one more thing we've yet to talk about. When we investigated the lower theater room, we found two bloody handprints."

"Bloody handprints?" Kasumi said. "Where, exactly?!"

"One was on a spot on the floor near Tanjiro's corpse," Mari answered. "And the other was on the wall to the right of the corpse."

"That's odd…" Faye said. "When I went down to the room before the body was discovered, I didn't see any handprints. At that point, though, I also didn't see Tanjiro's corpse, so maybe Kumi left them behind when he set up the trick."

"I'm afraid you're wrong this time, Faye. We know for sure that they weren't Kumi's," she replied. "Rather, by their size, they came from Tanjiro's hand."

"Wh-What?!" Sayua blurted out. "Wait, but are you saying that Tanjiro left behind those handprints instead?!"

"That's impossible!" Faye said. "Tanjiro was already dead when Kumi moved him to the lower theater room! Are you sure Kumi didn't fake them?"

Mari, however, shook her head. "No… Kumi wanted to fake his death by having him be struck by a bowling ball only once. These handprints would go against that, so it's unreasonable to think that Kumi planted them."

"Th-That's right!" Kumi insisted. "A-And they weren't there when I set up Tanjiro's body... so they must've been put there after I'd left..."

"Then… who made them?" Kasumi asked. "According to the security log, no one entered the lower theater room after that until Kumi and the others discovered Tanjiro's corpse!"

The one responsible for them… Masashi thought. It must've been someone who was in the lower theater room right after Kumi had finished setting up the scene… Ah!

"There's only one person who could've done it," he answered. "It was... Tanjiro himself."

"What?" Sorao said, eyeing him warily. "But wasn't he dead? Kumi had killed him already, dude!"

"Was he?" Mari responded. "Kumi said that after he had struck him, he 'knew' that he was dead. But, Kumi... did you ever check the body for yourself?"

It was then that Kumi widened his eyes.

"N-No… I didn't think I needed to!" he answered. "All that blood from his head… I thought for sure he couldn't have survived it!"

"Well, now… That was quite an assumption you made," Haruyuki said. "If you never checked to make sure that he was dead, then... perhaps you had actually knocked him unconscious."

His guess drew gasps from the others.

"Surely you jest!" Maiha exclaimed, looking quite pained as if a screech had entered her ears. "You mean to suggest that that fool didn't even bother to check the body?!"

"Well, if he is as foolish as you deem him to be, then it is not too surprising, yes?" Haruyuki responded before he faced Kumi. "And the whole time, Takumi, you weren't smuggling his dead body at all. You were actually just moving his unconscious self."

"But… Tanjiro was dead when we found him!" Faye gainsaid. "The body discovery announcement played, so there's no denying it!"

Ah… I get it now, Masashi thought. This whole thing… I can't believe it, but that's what all the evidence suggests.

"I... I think Tanjiro was alive when you guys entered the upper theater room," Masashi began, "Tanjiro must have woken up at some point. And remember, he was right beside the stack of boxes, and the toy car and the bowling ball were all set up already."

"Yes, I agree. He must've been quite confused as to what happened," Mari added. "I imagine that with the pain in his head, he would naturally touch his head wound and get his hand bloody."

"So… he tried to get up, I assume. And I suppose that explains the handprint on the floor," Masashi said. "And as for the handprint on the wall… I don't think Tanjiro was completely steady when he got up. He must've placed his bloody hand on the wall to support himself."

Kasumi let out a cry of realization. "Oh, I get it! After Kumi and the others went to the upper theater room, Kumi activated the toy car, thinking that he was just striking his 'corpse'!"

"But in truth… Tanjiro was fully alive at that point, yes?" Haruyuki added, nodding slightly. "The ball must've struck true and truly killed him at that point. And, Takumi, at any point during then, did you bother to look down?"

Kumi shook his head profusely, fear entering his eyes. "N-No... not at all! I-It was kinda hard to see Tanjiro from where I stood... and I-I knew what I was doing was awful, so I didn't really want to watch Tanjiro's body getting hurt..."

Haruyuki widened his smile. "Then it was completely possible that you unwittingly killed Tanjiro at that point through your deception."

"That's… That's how it all went down?" Sayua said.

"I can't believe it!" Kasumi yelped. "The time of death that was fake was real all along!"

Sorao stared at her dumbly. "So... you mean to say the last few minutes were pretty much a great waste of time?"

"No... It's good to know the truth of this part of the case, just in case it proves important later," Mari replied. "And we now know one thing from this: as Tanjiro is now known to have died after Hikari, the blackened is not Tanjiro's killer but Hikari's."

Faye widened her eyes slowly. "Then... he'll live?"

"You... You've gotta be fucking around!" Sayua said, befuddled. "You mean to say, that little bastard gets to live?! Even after he killed Tanjiro?!"

"According to the rules, yes," Maiha answered, looking quite disgusted, though not outright angry. "It seems that he won't receive any retribution for his crime."

"Ah, but is that true?" Haruyuki said, looking none too bothered by the outcome. "He indeed will not be punished by Monokuma, but... the fact remains: he killed a fellow human being and attempted to get away with it... and it was all for nothing."

"A-All for nothing..." Kumi said, looking more and more befuddled.

"Assuming that you are the killer, then yes!"

Monokuma spoke mirthfully, looking quite delighted by the conversation. "Those who kill have to live the remainder of their pitiful lives, knowing that they committed the greatest sin of all, only for it to be made utterly, utterly pointless."

"I... I..."

Monokuma then feigned sobbing as he lowered his head. "It's almost sad, really. Going through all that hard work... trying as hard as they could to remove all the evidence... only to be exposed by their so-called friends... It's so wasteful."

And it was then that Monokuma's lips bent into a wicked smile.

"But that's one of the best kinds of despair!" he continued. "There's nothing like the feeling of learning that everything that they've done was all for naught! Then they'll go into denial and fool themselves with lies that they've crafted. And the greater the lie, the greater the fall! That's why I love it when things go wrong."

"I... I killed... Tanjiro..." Kumi continued. Though he did not seem to acknowledge Monokuma, his words must have affected him, for his expression grew worse. "All for nothing... all for nothing... all for nothing..."

Kumi's voice gradually rose the more in its pitch the more his eyes welled up. This time, there was something so "broken" about his voice that Masashi could not find any sense of hope or optimism in it, and even if Kumi were to try, Masashi could not imagine his voice ever sounding the same, as if his sin had filled it with everlasting dissonance.

"Anyway… let's get back to actually important things," Monokuma said, seemingly paying no heed to being ignored. "I believe that you had earlier narrowed down the suspect to just one person, didn't you?"

"Yes, we did," Haruyuki said. "It was... Faye, yes?"

"Wh-What?" Faye said. "Why me?"

"Don'tcha remember?" Sorao said. "We know from the poison bottle in the staff lounge that someone must have entered the room after Masashi and company had left Hikari there by herself to rest. After all, the poison bottle wasn't in the room then, so the murderer must've left it there."

"And we figured out that to get to the staff lounge, the killer must've entered through the door, as the vent had already been blocked off by Tanjiro," Haruyuki added. "Of course, it was impossible for the killer to simply walk up the stairs. After all, Sayua was watching the outside the whole time."

"And trying to sneak there through the ballroom was not possible, since the security logs show no one entering the ballroom this morning," Mari said. "That leaves only the vent in the lower theater room to access the stairs to the staff lounge… and Faye was supposedly by herself in the room for quite a while."

"Pretty solid case, don't you think, everyone?" Sorao asked as he shrugged his shoulders.

"I can't believe you're still accusing me of being an opportunistic killer!" Faye said, grinding her teeth.

"But it's the only option left!" Sorao said, looking at her with a steadfast expression. "Haruyuki couldn't have done it, since he had no access to the vent and never went through the ballroom. So you're the only one left!"

Nonstop Debate

"We've proven that Kumi is the culprit behind Tanjiro's death," Sorao began. "We've solved the mystery of the mysterious sound once and for all."

"It was simply the sound of the armor falling during the struggle between Tanjiro and Kumi," Mari said. "Tanjiro knocked it over as he fell."

"And Hikari's killer is the one who must've been able to access the staff lounge," Haruyuki said. "You're the only one who fits that criterion."

"Don't be ridiculous!" Faye said. "I'm sure that there's some trick behind this!"

"There's no trick, really," Sorao said as he smirked. "You knocked on the door to get inside and held the bottle as you made her drink the poison."

"When you say it like that, it all sounds clear…" Sayua said.

"And there's no possible way to disprove it!" Sorao said. "It's totally clear to me!"

Truth Bullet Chosen (Refute): Fingerprint Data

No, that's wrong!

"Wait a minute… I don't think we've thoroughly looked through this theory," Masashi said. "There is one thing that may prove it wrong."

"Wh-What?" Sorao said, staring confusedly.

"It's the fingerprint data of the poison bottle," he explained. "Monokuma's confirmed that only four sets of fingerprints are on it: mine, yours, Mari's, and an unknown person's."

"Well, what is to question?" Haruyuki said. "The unknown person must be Faye."

"But that's just it: we don't know that for sure," Masashi said. "We know one other detail about these prints, and it's that they belong to a left-handed person."

Sorao gasped as he widened his eyes. "Faye… you're left-handed, aren't you?"

"What? No!" she said assertively. "I'm right-handed! And I can prove it easily. Just give me a piece of paper, and I'll write anything down without a hitch!"

"Well, even so, isn't it possible that they belonged to her anyway?" Kasumi asked. "Maybe she's ambidextrous like me!"

"And me," Haruyuki added, but no one seemed to pay him any mind.

Mari shook her head. "No, it doesn't matter even if she is. Monokuma specifically mentioned that the unknown person is not ambidextrous. That person is left-handed only."

Sorao gasped again, his lips quivering. "Th-That's right… He mentioned that…"

"Yes, I can assure you that my data is fully accurate," Monokuma said happily. "And rest assured, no one was wearing gloves or had wiped away any fingerprints, so these fingerprints are an authentic forensic record!"

"So it's clear that Faye never touched the bottle," Masashi said. "So she couldn't have been the one to take it to the staff lounge!"

"Then… she's not the culprit?" Sayua said.

"That's what I've been saying!" Faye said, looking quite grumpy. "You should've listened to me when I said so in the first place!"

"No, no, this has to be all wrong!" Sorao said, sounding quite annoyed. "Faye was the only one who could go to the room, right? Maybe she used something to hold the bottle so that her fingerprints might not get on it."

Mari shook her head. "I highly doubt so. Until the investigation, the killer would have no reason to think that Monokuma would give us any information on fingerprints. After all, he hadn't done so in the previous three cases, so naturally, the killer would feel free to hold the bottle directly."

Sorao winced as he looked back at her sheepishly. "I-I guess you have a point there... But if she never touched the bottle, then who did it?"

"Yes, this is quite befuddling," Haruyuki replied. "It's been proven that Faye and I, the only people with access to the lounge, are innocent, but somehow, the killer managed to enter the room and poison Hikari."

Kasumi groaned as she rubbed a spot on her head. "I sure want to know what trick the killer used, because I can't think of anything! It sounds like an impossible crime!"

"Impossible? Don't be daft. This simply cannot be," Maiha replied. "The killer must've found some way to enter the room after Hikari was left alone to rest. That's what the evidence shows."

"The evidence…" Mari said. "Hmm… I wonder."

"Wonder what?" Sayua said.

"If the conclusion that the evidence shows is impossible," she answered, "does it not mean then that we should take a closer look at the evidence itself?"

"Oh...? What are you suggesting?" Sorao asked gravely.

"I'm simply saying that I have my doubts about this bottle," she replied, unbothered by his tone. "For all we know, how do we not know that there's nothing fishy about it?"

"Fishy? How dare you!" Monokuma said. "I'll have you know that the bottle in question is a certified Monokuma product! 100% satisfaction guaranteed! If not, it was probably your fault that it didn't work."

"Oh, no, you misinterpret me. I don't doubt that the bottle in question came from your supply in the music room," Mari answered, looking only slightly bothered by Monokuma's irrelevant talk, "but think of it this way: if the poison bottle hadn't been in the room, we wouldn't have any evidence to suggest that Hikari was poisoned after she was left to rest there. We would've just thought that she had died from the poison, the antidote having failed to save her."

"But with the poison bottle in the room, it would suggest that someone had entered and poisoned her after we had found her," Masashi said. "You don't think that's the case?"

"That's right. I believe there was never an 'opportunistic third party' who took advantage of the situation to kill Hikari after we had left her in the lounge alone."

"So just to be clear, Hikari's killer... is Tanjiro's accomplice?" Kasumi asked, looking a bit puzzled. "The one who apparently tried to betray him by poisoning Hikari behind his back?"

"Yes, the accomplice poisoned her before we found Hikari unconscious in the room," Mari answered. "I believe that's the truth the accomplice tried to hide with a little trickery involving the poison bottle."

"That's what you say, but what's off about the bottle, then?" Faye asked. "I mean, it looks like any normal bottle... well, besides all the skulls on the label. I would've noticed something like them immediately even from a few feet away."

"Not that I could tell," Sorao answered laxly. "And if you're thinking about the fingerprints, then sorry, I've got nothing for you. The only ones on it are mine, Masashi's, Mari's, and a mysterious left-handed person's. Dunno about the last one, but the rest of us touched it during the investigation, so there's no mystery here."

Mari sighed as she looked down troubledly. "I suppose not..."

"We ought to uncover the identity of this left-handed person," Maiha said. "Which of you is left-handed?"

"Well… I am."

It was Sayua, who looked not at all bothered.

"I'm left-handed," she explained. "But don't get any funny ideas! I've gone through that cabinet before to get a drink. I don't clearly remember touching it, but maybe I laid my hand on it at one point as I went through the bottles."

"Hmm. Not as conclusive as one would like it to be," Haruyuki said. "Anyone else?"

"I-I'm left-handed, too."

This time, it was Kumi, who too looked quite composed, though it seemed to be more out of utter tiredness than confidence. "But... I don't remember ever getting anything from that cabinet…"

Sorao sighed as he scratched the back of his head. "Some help the fingerprints are! In the end, we don't know which of you touched the bottle and when!"

Yeah... I can't think of anything to narrow down which of them the fingerprints belong to... Masashi thought. And the other fingerprints aren't a mystery. Mari touched it during the investigation, and Sorao and I—

Masashi stopped.

Until now, nothing about the fingerprints had stood out as wrong. But the more he thought about how the fingerprints had gotten onto the bottle, the more troubled he grew. Only a few seconds later did he see the source of his trouble.

No... No, I can't believe it! he thought. I can't believe I didn't realize this earlier!

"Everyone, I don't think we should focus on the left-handed person," Masashi said. "Rather, we should be focusing on the others."

"For what?" Sayua asked. "Don't see the point of it. You guys touched it during the investigation, didn't you?"

"I'm afraid it's not that simple," he replied. Though he was not sure what this contradiction meant, he chose to continue forwards anyway. "The other fingerprints prove there is something wrong… because one of them shouldn't be here in the first place..."

"Wh-What?" Sorao said, looking truly confused. "What are you talking about, man? Whose don't belong?"

"I know full well whose. After all, it's mine."

"Huh?"

All the others, including those usually more collected such as Mari and Haruyuki, stared at him with confusion.

"Are you playing around or something, dude?" Sorao asked. "Your fingerprints are there because you touched them while we both investigated the room, don't you remember?"

Masashi shook his head firmly. "No, I didn't. I thought so as well, but now that I think about it... you're the only one who ever touched it during that moment."

Sorao knelt by the body and picked up the nearby fallen bottle, whose contents had already been spilled onto the floor. "Is this the bottle Mari had her drink?"

Masashi nodded without thinking as he looked down at the bottle. "Yes, that's the antidote bottle—"

But only after he actually looked at it did he stop. For a second, he wondered whether he was seeing things, but after he rubbed his eyes, the sight before him remained unchanged.

"That... That's not the antidote bottle!"

"It's not?"

"Look at the skulls drawn on the label! It's no antidote at all!" he replied, pointing at it. "That must be a bottle of poison!"

Sorao clenched his teeth in shock, his back suddenly straightened as if a chill had crawled through his spine. "You… You never touched it?"

"Are you absolutely sure about this, Masashi?!" Mari asked, sounding quite surprised. At first, it surprised Masashi to see her lose her cool, but now that he thought about it, he was sure that he had never told her this during the investigation. Naturally, it had been such a minor detail at the time.

"I don't remember exactly," Masashi answered, "but I'm fairly sure you were the one handling the bottle the whole time, Sorao."

"Th-That's... I can't believe it..." Sorao muttered as he set one hand on his head.

"But I don't get it!" Kasumi said. "If you've never touched it, Masashi, how come your prints are on there?!"

I've never touched the poison bottle... Masashi thought. In that case, the bottle in question… I think I know the truth behind it now!

"The 'poison bottle' isn't actually the poison bottle at all!" he concluded. "It must be a different bottle!"

The others gasped again.

"A-A different bottle?" Maiha said, staring at him with amazement. "What bottle are you talking about?"

"As a matter of fact, I have a good idea on what it is," Masashi answered. "Right after Kasumi, Sayua, and I left the clothing shop, we bumped into Mari, and she showed us the antidote bottle."

"Oh! Mari!" Masashi said, somewhat relieved to see her again. "What are you doing here?"

"Ah! You must've thought about how fun it was to try out different outfits, so you wanted to come join us!" Kasumi said, her eyes glinting.

"Er, no. Nothing like that," Mari said plainly. "Rather, it's something… potentially concerning."

She then took out from her jacket a small white bottle around which was wrapped a label, and she handed it to Masashi so that he might take a closer look at it. At first glance, it looked like an ordinary drink, and the label even had a green cross on the top. But only when he read the label and the incredibly small text thereon did he see whence her concern was.

"This is… an antidote!" he said, summarizing the contents. "And this one in particular is meant to counteract poisons that cause numbing."

"Ah… That's right..." Mari said gravely. "You touched it at that point… and that was when your fingerprints got on it…"

"Can't believe you can remember that much," Sayua said as she scratched the side of her head. "It's such a small thing."

"So… the 'poison bottle' you found was actually the antidote bottle?" Sorao said, sounding as he had recovered from learning about the problem with the fingerprints. "But don't the two bottles look different?"

"Not exactly. They're both of the same size, and outwardly, they differ on the label," Mari answered, her cool voice slowly returning. "I think it's quite clear that the culprit chose to switch the labels of the bottles."

"What? The labels?" Maiha said, looking none too sure about her explanation. "Could the labels of the bottles even be taken off?"

"They could," Masashi said. "When Sorao and I examined the bottle, Sorao peeled off the label to see whether there were any clues. There weren't, but that was proof enough the labels could be taken off."

"Oh, so that's what happened!" Kasumi said, a hint of awe in her voice. "At some point, the culprit must've taken off the antidote bottle's label and replaced it with the poison bottle's!"

"Even so, man, if there were to be any switching going on," Sorao pointed out, speaking more quietly than usual, "don't you think it'd make more sense to switch the bottles instead?"

"True... I'm still not sure on why the culprit chose to switch the labels in particular," Mari replied.

"Perhaps the original poison bottle was somehow damaged, and so any switching would expose the charade at once," Haruyuki suggested. "Then the culprit would have to use the label instead, is that not right?"

"Whatever the cause may have been," Masashi said, "I feel confident in saying the 'poison bottle' found during the investigation was a fake!"

"I have to admit... it's not something that would be easily seen," Mari replied somberly. "If it weren't for your memory about touching it, I might still be confused."

Maiha frowned as she crossed her arms. "Then the next question is: which of us switched the labels?"

Surprise! The class trial isn't over yet! But you've probably already figured that out from how short this chapter is. I was originally going to publish the second half as one chapter, but in the end, I thought that it was best to simply split it into two. Not only did I think this part to be a fitting enough place to end things, but I also figured that in this case, trying to cram everything into one chapter would make this tiresome to read.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that at this point, you can figure out which character has been deceiving the others. See you next time for the last part of the class trial (excluding the aftermath, of course).