AN: Ok, so I know I said my series was going to focus on the pre-Despair, Hope's Peak stuff, but envisioning a D4 class trial was just too fun! So this is a snippet of how I think the game mechanics would work:

The podiums stood in a circle. The tile floor in the center was black like a DJ disc. The only color was a dash of red acting as the disc's needle, but it was oddly shaped, jagged, like lightning. Monochio reclined on a large, red couch behind the podium farthest from the doors. Once they swung open, the beckoning cat waved its 24 pupils inside with its tail, like a flag waving before a race. Perhaps that was exactly what it was.

It was a race against the clock. A race against one another. A race against the Head-cat-ster. A race against life, a race against death. A race against lies, a race against truths. It was a race against the class trial!

Trial. Start. All rise.

"Now, now, now, we've all seen this one before!" Monochio's nasally, obnoxious voice pierced the air. "Three times before, as a matter of fact! So rather than bore everyone with yet another repetitive rehash of the goals and rules of a class trial, I'm just gonna letcha get on with it! Nyahahahahaaaa!" Monochio raised a paw to its fanged-mouth, mechanical laughter echoing from its giant metal body. The only thing it gave them in the way of help was a tablet that it called a Pheline Fone, or PheFo. It could store clues, alibis, photos, and anything else useful in an investigation.

"B-but how are we supposed to start a trial without a case?" Saori whimpered meekly, unable to look up from her PheFo and meet her headcatster's beady little black eyes. They were soulless, especially the longer one looked into them.

"Oh, pooh! And you guys are Ultimates!" Monochio flicked its ears disdainfully. "Just start somewhere and go! You have to do that anyway!"

"S-sorry! Sorry!" Saori waved her hands and recoiled. "B-b-besides, my Talent… isn't very useful in this kind of situation anyway…" She sighed and hugged herself, self-conscious, no longer able to meet anyone's eyes.

"Don't worry about it!" Rika grinned, bumping her right shoulder against Saori's left. The way seats were assigned, every unit was together. Monochio sat right behind Marika. Saori was to her left, and Dalia right. If one could've seen the trial room from above and imagined it as a clock with M4 on 12, clockwise, there was Photon, Peaky, Hapiara, Lyrilily, and RONDO. "It's not Talent that matters, it's how you use it!" Rika continued. She raised a finger in the air importantly while Saori winced in embarrassment and Marika and Dalia chuckled quietly at her expense.

"Hey! I said let's get on with it!" Monochio interrupted with a snap. "Although, I suppose you do have a point. Can't really figure out whodunnit if no one dun nuthin! Now, I could be lame and just make up a scenario where Hiiro is killed in the bathroom and you guys have to determine which other student caused the struggle that was found in her room after the murder, but…"

"Why me?" Hiiro's eyes widened, and she cried out in alarm. "I wanted to solve the mystery, not be the one it's about!"

"Well, if you would've just listened the first time, missy," Monochio swished its tail and hissed at her tauntingly, "I'm not going to go with that idea! I have something a little more original, and even less complex! Perfect for a Class Trial Demo of the Killing School Transfer of Hope's Pinnacle!"

ooo

[Case Summary for context]: Nagisa is found tangled and strangled to death in a trap hanging from the ceiling in a hallway branching off the main entrance. Her body was found early morning by Ibuki, who had gone for a jog through the school. Nagisa was last seen the night before, after the 24 students had a dinner party that ended in everyone going their separate ways the rest of the evening and night.]

The lights flicked off, then, four seconds later, they flicked back on. Nagisa's podium was empty, and all that remained was a stand holding a portrait of her. There was a large, pink X stenciled across her face, made to look like two intersecting guitar necks.

"Nagisa!" Hiiro, Aoi, and Tsubaki cried out as the girl standing between Aoi and Tsubaki was suddenly gone.

"Oh, quit your yowling!" Monochio sighed and rolled its beady black eyes. "She's not actually dead! She's just observing from another room!"

Hanging above the center of the trial room were six monitors. They flicked on to reveal Nagisa in what appeared to be an empty movie theater, complete with a red-and-white, striped bucket of buttery popcorn and red-and-blue 3D glasses. She waved at them, but Monochio turned the screens back off before she could say anything.

"Now let's begin! NONSTOP DEBATE TIME!" The fourth time it asked was the last. When the screen clicked off, it flashed once, and suddenly, every student had an alibi. All the PheFos were also automatically updated with the new information and data. Naturally, accusations spread like wildfire. Soon, only one student could see any clarity through the metaphorical smoke.

Saki's silver eyes widened. Colors!

Sure enough, as the class argued with itself, Saki could see every word fly around her head like deranged subtitles. They were a silvery gray-white, literal white noise, but one phrase in particular caught Saki's eye. Unlike all the others, it was golden…

"I didn't do it!" Towa started the Nonstop Debate immediately.

"That's… not even… an argument…" Noa's eyes slid left as she shot the other girl a look so disbelieving it was almost disgusted.

"I didn't do it either!" Yuka cried before Noa could say anything else, a worried expression on her face.

"Shut it, shutter-face!" Shinobu snapped from Yuka's left.

"Yeah, you'll just look more suspicious that way," Tsubaki agreed darkly, thinking hard as her finger rested on her chin.

"Well, in way of an alibi, I was in the music room, playing piano!" Rei smiled hopefully. "Rinku and Maho can vouch for me."

"Yeah, and I went to my room after dinner to work on my drawings," Muni nodded. "So it couldn't have been me."

"I was in the kitchen… With Haruna, Aoi, and Tsubaki…" Miyu said shyly.

"Right, we were all helping clean up together," Aoi nodded, smiling. Miyu shot her a relieved, grateful smile.

"Miiko and I were off pulling pranks together, hehehe…" Kurumi and Miiko grinned wickedly at one another.

"You were what?!" Haruna shrieked, trapped between them, Miyu on the other side of Kurumi.

"Oh, calm down, Chairman." Both of them sighed and shook their heads in unison, hands on their hips.

"Who are you calling—?!"

"It's your Talent, duh, remember?"

"O-O-Oh… right…" Haruna hid her mouth behind her hand as she winced at herself.

"Well, this is getting us absolutely nowhere." Shinobu scoffed, crossing her arms, closing her eyes, and looking away. No matter what reaction she received, only Saki would've disagreed. Of all the phrases Saki saw fly around the room, why did one of Muni's turn gold?

I don't think anyone else caught it, so it's up to me to let the others know! And yet… The thought of speaking in such a loud, hostile environment was scary… But if she didn't say anything, and if she didn't say anything now, who else would? And when? Saki heard the lyrics to one of her unit's songs echoing in circles around her head the way the conversation was echoing in circles around the trial room.

Right here, right now! She played the conversation back in her head.

Right here, right now! She heard Muni's inconsistency a second time.

Right here, right now! She inhaled sharply and steeled her nerves as the clue that led to the truth finally became visible to her. No evidence.

Right here—BANG! BANG! BANG!I see the truth!

Before she even knew what she was doing, Saki lunged forward, pointing at Muni. "NO, THAT'S WRONG!"

The other 22 students were so stunned to hear Saki, of all people, being so loud that the entire room went dead quiet, except for Monochio, who was laughing in hysterical delight behind Marika.

"Oh, she said it! She said it! She really, really said it! Just like a true Danganronpa protagonist! She may not have the ahoge for it, but she's got a sweet set of Mary Sue plot-helpful powers! I wonder what other tropes she can fall into… or avoid." Monochio's fanged smile became even wider and sharper. Then Miiko suddenly piped up.

"Oh, are you referring to the horror trope of female characters being killed off, sometimes as sacrificial lambs and sometimes as moral lessons to society at large?" Of course, everyone else knew the "Final Girl" trope, but there were far more horror tropes for women than just that.

"Miiko… why, in Heaven's name, do you know about such things?!" Haruna put a hand over her heart, scandalized.

"Foreign language film for foreign language class!" Miiko shrugged cheerfully. Why the Ultimate Linguist was in a language class at all was a mystery, but Miiko seemed happy, especially when the professor asked for recommendations. Haruna just couldn't believe that any teacher would actually show a recommendation like that. Her eye twitched, but before she could say anything else, Noa interjected.

"Besides, Monochio, you better not be threatening my precious lil Saki! If you are, then, well, I'll be here to protect her to the very end!" Noa made a point to reach across Towa and Ibuki just to reach for Saki's hand. To her eternal bliss and delight, Saki actually let her.

And she thinks I'M stupid! Towa rolled her eyes, unimpressed. Ibuki, meanwhile, could only wince and wonder how much worse it had to get before she was allowed to use her leader powers and politely steer them back on track. Lucky for her (maybe), Muni beat her to it.

"Oh, enough of this already!" She stomped her foot impatiently before pointing right back at Saki. "You! What did you just say to me?"

"N-n-no evidence…" Saki hardly heard herself, partly because she could barely breathe, and because her heart was thundering in her chest. She cleared her throat and tried to look brave. "You have… no evidence!" It didn't work. "O-o-of y-your… your… your claim…"

While she backed down, shaking, Muni could only gawk. Why's she saying I'M sus?! No one else has any proof either!

That wasn't true. A couple students could already vouch for one another. Muni was just unlucky to have the first inconsistency that Saki caught. Like Monochio said, they had to start somewhere.

But where?! Muni thought in helpless frustration. I don't have an—! She couldn't admit it, even to herself, but Saki was right. Or so they thought.

To Muni's right, directly across from Marika, Rinku was thinking hard. Mentally, the wheels were turning, and she made it literal by envisioning herself on a motorcycle. So many of her classmates already owned or rode them that it was the first thing that came to mind. She imagined herself riding through the city, all the road signs with questions that slowly led her closer and closer to an answer. I got it!

Rinku excitedly turned on her PheFo and pulled up the shared file of written testimonies and alibies. In one of Rinku's, she offhandedly mentioned that after she, Rei, and Maho were done in the music room, they went to the Hapiara dorm where Muni was indeed working on sketches.

"And I swear, she didn't have those sketches any time before we came back to the dorm!" Rinku continued. "There are also so many that even she, the Ultimate Illustrator, would've needed hours to make them all! So she's not lying about being in the dorm all evening!"

While Rinku puffed out her chest with her hands on her hips, huffing out her nose with a proud expression on her face, some of the other students looked surprised and impressed while others still chuckled and clapped politely. There was a chance that Muni had the drawings from even earlier in the game, creating them solely for the purpose of being able to use them as an alibi, but just because something was a possibility didn't mean it was a likelihood. There were far more lines of inquiry they needed to go down first. And so, with that, their first nonstop debate was done!

But that was just one type of debate out of many, and Monochio had a lot more to teach its class before the demo itself was done. After all, the only thing they managed to do was prove that Muni was likely not a suspect. The mystery was far from solved. Silver met black as Monochio stared, unblinking and expressionless, into Saki's very soul. She returned the even gaze in kind.

Right here, right now, I'm ready for the next debate. Right here, right now, I'm getting the hang of this! Right here, right now, I only see the future. Right here, right now, I'm building the foundations of the truth! Right here…

The truth bullets continued to fly.

AN: I imagine the trial room (or at least its first variation) to look like the one in DR1, and if you want to know what order everyone is standing in, just look at one of the very last shots of the last ep of D4DJ's Petite Mix.

Also, the reason Monochio has two beady black eyes here is because it is only at the end of this trial that someone is so outraged by the execution that they yeet their PheFo at it and it shatters part of its face, leading to the iconic, jagged, red Monokuma eye.

And IMO, "4 Challenges" has one more DR "reference". The line "Come on, go, reach for the stars!" could be woven into DR2's execution music when the background vocals sing, "Reach for the stars, reach so high!"

#ReachforthePeak #Hope'sPeak #Hope'sPinnacle LOL

Also, the Mental Motorcycle is the D4 version of Logic Dive/Psyche Taxi, though I think it would be cool if every unit had its own vehicle. Hapiara could have colorful cars or things like scooters, segues, and roller skates. Peaky could have skateboards or cool, dark sports cars. Photon could have a spaceship/alien ship. M4 could have surfboards. RONDO could have dark cars or motorcycles. Lyrilily could have carriages or they imagine themselves flying with dove/angel wings, LOL!

Also let me know if you want more trial scenes. I can come up with other "mini mysteries" to sort through just to keep demoing D4DR game mechanics.