Chapter 1: Part 19

"A body has been discovered!" Monokuma announced over the school's intercom. "Now the, after a certain amount of time has passed, the class trial will begin! Use your time wisely!"

Everyone had froze and remained as still as statues when the announcement ringed out. Most of them already knew what that announcement truly meant. Paranoia, distrust, and hatred towards people they once viewed as allies. If they lost? The killer would get away and they would all die at Monokuma's hands. But if they won? The killer that was once their friend would have to face a horrible execution. No matter what happened, Monokuma would win. They had to play his game if they wanted to live. After a moment, they recollected themselves, and began to investigate.

Kaede was the first person to move over to Tsumugi's body to start the investigation. Sayaka cringed as she watched the fellow musician put her hands on the corpse. She covered her mouth as she gagged, fearing something may actually flood out from her stomach. Kaede meanwhile had lifted Tsumugi's head up slightly, but nearly retracted her arm away as a fountain of blood poured down from her forehead, covering her eyes a bit. Kaede's eyes then scanned down to the knife in the cosplayer's stomach.

"Well, I hate to just state the obvious," Kaede said with a frown, "but this knife was clearly used to slash at Tsumugi several times."

Sayaka gulped down some saliva to act as some sort of barricade for whatever vomit may raise up her body. "D-do we have to touch the body?" she asked.

"Well, no, but it helps in case we miss anything," Kaede explained. "Why don't you check your monopod? That should have been updated with details of the case."

"It has?" Sayaka asked.

"Yeah," Tenko chimed in. "Monokuma usually posts it after the body discovery announcement is played."

Sayaka raised an eyebrow and reached into her pocket to pull out her monopod. Upon turning it on, she was greeted with a brand-new tab on the main menu. "Case Details" is what it was labeled as. Sayaka pressed it and was greeted with an overview of the situation.

CASE OVERVIEW:

Victim: Tsumugi Shirogane

Age: 18

Sex: Female

Time of Death: 8:40

Time of Discovery: 8:45"

Cause of Death: Multiple Stab Wounds and Blood Loss

"8:40," Sayaka said to herself. She looked away from her monopod and faced Tenko and Kaede. "Do either of you remember when the flash bang went off?"

Tenko scratched the back of her head as she tried her best to remember the time, but nothing came to her. She shook her head and shrugged. Kaede stroked her chin as she walked through her day's events.

"I entered the cafeteria around…7:05 I believe," Kaede ran through the time. "I believe everyone else arrived by 7:15. Then we ate for an hour, right?"

"That sounds about right," Sayaka said. "Then we spoke for a while afterwards, right?"

"That sounds about right," Tenko said. "And that lasted…how long?"

"I think twenty minutes," Kaede said.

"So, the flash bang went off around 8:35?" Sayaka asked.

That sounded right, but there were still oddities to that timeline. That left five minutes, no, ten minutes completely unaccounted for between Junko and Tsumugi. Same with Kokichi. And the case file didn't give any more details.

Kaito rounded the corner, dragging Junko by her wrists, which were tied up again. "I've been trying to interrogate Junko for the past few minutes."

Kaede looked over to her purple haired friend. "Any luck with that?" she asked.

Kaito looked back at Junko, who was just snickering to herself. Kaito turned back to his friends. "You expect her to answer me?"

Kaede sighed and stood up. "Sounds about right," she said. "Still, we got to investigate. I suggest we split up to find more clues."

"Ok, so where do we start?" Sayaka asked. "I've…never actually investigated a murder."

"Don't worry!" Tenko grabbed a hold of Sayaka's hand. "I'll help you out!"

"Yeah," Kaito said. "Besides, you seem to have a good head on your shoulders, so I'm sure you'll do fine."

"I don't think you should be so nonchalant about this," Kaede said. "If we screw up…y-you know…"

"Oh," Kaito scratched the back of his head. "Yeah…Well, whatever! We have a good track record of solving murders! We just need to focus!"

They all nodded and split up. They had work to do.

When the announcement played out in the cafeteria, the first person to take action was Byakuya. He immediately rose up to his feet and returned to his leader role. "Gonta, Nekomaru, Sakura, take Mikan and all of the injured to the nurse's office," he commanded his classmates. "Mukuro, Rantaro, Peko, Ibuki, you four examine the radius of the flash bang explosion. We could potentially find out where it came from. Kiyo, Chiaki, Teruteru, Kirumi, Gundham, you will examine the school for more clues. Anything you find, you must inform everyone immediately. Leon, Celestia, Angie, Ryoma, Miu, you're with me."

Ibuki saluted Byakuya. "Right-a-roni, Mr. Ham-Hands!" Ibuki said as cheerfully, but the moment she put her arm back down, a frown appeared across her face.

With those orders, everyone broke off to their groups and spread out to do their jobs. This left Rantaro, Mukuro, Peko, and Ibuki to deal with the remains of the flash bang grenade. Rantaro and Ibuki grabbed a dustpan and broom respectively while Peko began to scan the area in an attempt to find where the grenade could have come from. As Peko attempted to retrace her steps of the breakfast meeting, Peko felt something grab onto her sleeve. Peko looked over her shoulder to see Mukuro standing right behind her. Before the swordswoman could ask what the soldier wanted, Mukuro spoke up.

"I know where the flash bang came from," Mukuro said with her usual stoic demeanor.

Peko raised an eyebrow. "Where?" she asked just as stoically.

Mukuro stepped away from Peko before circling around the main table of the room and stopping at the third seat from the north end. "The person who threw it was sitting right here," Mukuro said as she pointed to the table.

Peko looked at the chair then moved her eyes two seats to the left. "And that's where Tsumugi was sitting, correct?"

Mukuro nodded. "And Junko sat right across from her."

"That would make it easy for them to toss the grenade in between the two of them," Peko said before looking over at Mukuro. "So, you know who did it?"

"I do…"

"Who was it?"

"I did."

At that moment, Ibuki dropped her broom and Rantaro looked away from the floor.

"Wha-wha-what?!" Ibuki gasped.

"You did that?" Rantaro asked.

Mukuro crossed her arms and nodded. "I won't deny it."

Peko placed her hand on her sword hilt. "You mind explaining why you did that?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Mukuro turned back to the swordswoman. "I wanted to kill Junko."

Asking why would be rather stupid. Even the most noble of people would agree that Junko Enoshima deserved to die. And Mukuro had just as much of a reason for wanting to kill her as everyone else at Hope's Peak and Jabberwock Island. Still, this left a few pressing questions left for Mukuro to answer.

"Did…did you kill her?" Ibuki asked.

"Well, I'm here, not covered in blood, and the body seems to be somewhere else," Mukuro explained. "What do you think?"

Rantaro decided to move onto the next question. "How did you get your hands on that grenade? Did Tenko really leave you alone to go to your lab?"

Mukuro shook her head. "No. Well, she did, but that's because she was getting…too close."

Rantaro nodded a bit. "That sounds like here."

"Then how did you get that flash grenade?" Peko asked.

"It was given to me," Mukuro said.

"It was GIVEN TO YOU?!" Ibuki gasped again. "Who gave it to you? When did you get it?"

"Last night. I had just kicked Tenko out of my room when my doorbell rang. I opened the door, but no one was there. All there was as a taped-up box with a note attached."

Mukuro pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and held it up to the group. The note read:

Mukuro,

You must be fuming right now. I tricked you to betraying your friends and destroy the world, yet I stabbed you in the back just for kicks. And to make it even worse? My only punishment here? Tied up hands? Constant supervision? That's a slap on the wrist. My suicide was way worse and that helped get me off anyway. But I'm sure you're upset. You must hate the constant watching and handcuffs, receiving the same punishments as me. So, you're going to do something about it?

Love,

Junko

"Junko gave it to you?" Rantaro asked.

Mukuro nodded. "It may not make sense, but she would want me to kill her. It would fill her with despair for her own sister to kill her."

Peko sighed. "I don't think anyone can understand her logic."

"Well, your class did when you were all Ultimate Despair."

"But that's still weird, right?" Ibuki asked. "She wanted you to kill her just as she wanted to kill Tsumugi? Even if she did kill Tsumugi, it would have been in front of all of us, right?"

"Again, Junko isn't above letting herself get caught if it pleases her."

"Look, why don't we get back to cleaning this place up?" Rantaro suggested. "Maybe we'll find something once we got all these pieces together."

Ibuki saluted. "Yes sir!" she said before grabbing the broom again and sweeping the area up again.

Sayaka covered her mouth as she moved closer to Tsumugi's body. She could feel her throat tingle as she examined the pale corpse of the cosplayer as the smell of blood and the rotting, exposed inners filled her nose. Still, it would do her no good to just stand back and let everyone else investigate. She had to at least try and help. She looked over to Kaede, who had been examining each of the cuts and stab wounds. Perhaps Sayaka could learn from her musical colleague.

"Ok," Kaede spoke. "So, I counted nine wounds on Tsumugi's body. Not counting the knife sticking out of her."

Kaito glared over at Junko before shoving her against a wall. "You practically mutilated her!"

Junko bounced off the wall and looked right into Kaito's eyes with a wicked grin across her face. "Come on," she said. "You should be thanking me. She was the mastermind of your game after all."

Kaito pressed his forearm against Junko's chest and pinned her against the wall. "We didn't know that! It was just a theory!"

"And I was willing to follow through. You're welcome."

"To think a girl could be such a degenerate," Tenko grimaced at Junko.

Sayaka did her best to zone out Junko and Kaito's argument. She would have loved to see him knock Junko's teeth out, but she needed to focus on the investigation. All the wounds were hard to ignore, but she held her breath and kept scanning the body until she looked at the knife sticking out of her. Something about the hilt confused her. It wasn't as smooth and basic as the hilt of a kitchen knife. It has four grooves across it for someone's fingers to easily rest in if gripped onto.

"Hey, guys?" Sayaka finally spoke up. "This…this isn't a kitchen knife, right?"

Kaito finally stopped shouting at Junko and looked over at the body. He backed away from the model and knelt down next to Sayaka. "Huh," he said. "I think that's a hunting knife."

Sayaka looked over to the purple-haired boy. "A hunting knife?"

"Yeah. They're supposed to be a lot tougher than kitchen knives. They can cut through bones and stuff."

Kaede glared over at Junko before looking at the knife. "I'm sorry, Tsumugi," she said solemnly.

Sayaka frowned a bit before turning around towards the two. "Guys? Can I admit something?" she asked.

Kaito and Kaede looked over at Sayaka with puzzled expressions across their faces.

"Yesterday at lunch, after we found out Junko was the mastermind, I went into the kitchen and I noticed that one of the knives was missing."

"Wait, was this when you said you were going to make yourself something to eat?" Tenko asked.

Sayaka nodded.

Kaede stroked her chin a bit. "Was someone else using it?"

"No," Sayaka shook her head. "I saw Teruteru using a knife, but counting that, there was still one missing."

"Ok, so we got another knife missing," Kaito said before turning to Junko. "You got anything to do with that?"

Junko smirked. "Want to do a body check on me? I don't mind the weird touching."

Kaito blushed and looked away. "I-I think she doesn't have it."

Kaede rolled her eyes. "I'll check her," she said. "Still, I don't really get if this missing knife will be important. I mean, we clearly have to murder weapon right…in Tsumugi…"

Sayaka frowned a bit. "I-I'm sorry. I just thought…maybe it was important."

"Don't worry about, Sayaka," Kaito placed his hand on the idol's shoulder. "We'll figure this all out."

Kaede approached Junko and patted down the model. She patted her waist, her sleeves, and her thighs. After a minute or so, Kaede turned around and shook her hand.

"She doesn't have anything," Kaede said.

"Hey, you didn't check if I hid anything in my bra," Junko said with a laugh.

"Sh-shut up," Kaede said before returning to the others.

Kaito looked over to Kaede. "You probably check."

"I feel dirty even being near her, I'm not putting my hands anywhere near her chest," Kaede said.

"Ok, ok," Kaito said. "I'll keep an eye on her while you two keep searching."

Sayaka and Kaede nodded to their friend and Kaito stood back up to watch Junko.

Byakuya led his group down the hall as they searched for any clues they could use to figure out what had happened. Most of the group felt silly. They didn't even know who was murdered, yet they're already searching for clues as to how they died. They would glance into different classrooms, but there was no real clues or signs of a corpse. They kept walking until they noticed the door to the trash room was wide open. With very little options left, they entered the trash room. At a passing glance, nothing was really off about the room. All the trash cans were lined up correctly, they were carrying varying amounts of trash, some in bags, some simply had trash tossed in, the incinerator was on, and the fan was-

Leon's eyes immediately went wide and he dashed over to shut off the incinerator. He smashed his fist against the off switch and the fire inside slowly died down and diminished to nothing. Leon took a deep breath and looked back to the group.

"Let's hope whatever's in there is still salvageable," Leon said.

Celeste smirked and chuckled lightly. "Why isn't this quite the familiar scenario, isn't Kuwata?"pr

Leon furrowed his brows. "If you're going to accuse me of this, I'm gonna be so pissed."

"Of course I'm not," Celeste kept her smirk up. "I just find it humorous. That's all."

"So, you both think someone's trying to dispose of evidence the same way?" Ryoma asked.

"Nyahaha!" Angie clapped her hands together. "Leon and Celeste's previous experience has rendered the killer's tricks useless! Truly Auta works in mysterious ways."

"Uh, sure," Leon said with a baffled expression. He looked back at the incinerator and scratched the back of his head. "So, does anyone see any gloves to wear? Cause, I'm pretty sure the inside of this thing is still hot as hell. Hey, Miu. You got gloves. You want to help?"

"Fuck no," Miu snapped. "These are fingerless gloves, dumbass!"

"Ok…and?"

Miu groaned. "If anything other than my palms touch the inside of that, my skins going to melt off! Duh, idiot!"

Everyone turned away from the annoyed looked around the room for some sort of heat resistant gloves, but there were none to be found. Time was too precious to waste on going back to the kitchen to grab some oven mitts. So, Byakuya turned to Leon.

"Give me your shirt," Byakuya ordered.

Leon turned to the giant man. "What?"

"Give me your shirt. I'll use it to cover my hand."

"Dude, why can't you use your jacket?"

"Just do it," Byakuya said with a bit of thunder in voice.

Leon was so surprised by Byakuya's sudden change in tone that he took a step back. After few seconds sighed and slipped his jacket off and handed it over to Byakuya.

"Your shirt too," Byakuya said.

Leon rolled his eyes and removed his shirt. Leon was left completely topless. The chill of the room made goosebumps grow across his body. He wrapped his arms around himself to keep himself warm to the best of his abilities. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Miu eyeing him up. When she locked eyes with Leon, she wiggled her eyebrows bit her lip.

"Nice six pack," Miu said with a wink.

Leon blushed. He wasn't used the girls making similar advances as him, but he smiled back at her. "Thanks. I work out a lot."

Byakuya ignored the idiotic flirting behind him as he wrapped his hands up with Leon's shirts and opened the small door to the incinerator. He took a deep breath and reached into the furnace. He would dig around inside the furnace for a few minutes. The opening certainly didn't allow much wiggle room for a man of his size, but eventually Byakuya was able to grab a hold of something. Using both of his hands, he cupped the item and lifted it up.

"I may need some assistance," Byakuya said to his group.

Leon and Ryoma rushed over to Byakuya's side and tugged as hard as they could to get the large man out. Leon looked back to see Celeste, Angie, and Miu just standing back and watching them.

"Do you guys want to help at all?" Leon asked with a whiny tone.

Celeste twirled her hair. "Such physical labor is beneath me."

"And I'm not putting my hands anywhere near that sweaty lard ass," Miu said as she crossed her arms.

Meanwhile, Angie had her hands pressed together as she smiled at Leon. "I am praying to Auta that he will grant you the strength to succeed."

"Oh gee, thanks," Leon said before returning to the job at hand.

With a few more tugs and pulls, Ryoma and Leon were finally be able to pull Byakuya out of the incinerator. Byakuya fell to the ground on his rear holding onto the item from the furnace. He placed it on the ground and unwrapped his hands. He handed Leon's shirt and jacket back to the baseball player who looked down at his once clean, white shirt and jacket covered in ash.

"Aw, come on," Leon whined.

Byakuya ignored Leon's whining as he looked down at what he had pulled out of the incinerator. It was balled-up, black backpack. Whether it was always black or being burned caused it to turn black was impossible to tell. He unzipped the backpack to reveal some items that were untouched by the flames of the machine. That being said, the items were…unusual. A piece of black cloth, a piece of white cloth, and a kitchen knife. Byakuya crossed his arms as he examined these items. The pieces of cloth looked like that had been cut from large pieces of clothing, but what those were was unclear. As for the knife, Byakuya figured it may have been the murder weapon, but there was no blood on it. Byakuya placed the items back in the backpack and stood up.

"Let's go," Byakuya said.

"Did you find anything of worth?" Celeste asked.

"Yes," Byakuya said. "What they mean is something I don't know yet."

"Well, we'll find out in the trial, right?" Leon asked.

"We better or we're all fucked," Miu said.

Byakuya nodded before picking up the bag and leading his group out of the trash room.

Ibuki and Rantaro finished sweeping up all of the piece of the grenade and placed them onto a paper towel to keep them all together. Ibuki very little idea as to what most of those pieces were. Of course, they both recognized the rubber pellets that hit everyone and the twisted shell of grenade, but everything else was foreign to them.

"Well, I can't really saw I'm finding any new information from this," Rantaro said.

"Ibuki's stumped too," Ibuki pouted her lips.

"Look again," Mukuro said as she pointed to the shell. "This isn't an official flash bang grenade."

Peko leaned over to the table to examine the shell. "How can you tell?"

"Flash grenades are used with higher quality material," Mukuro explained. "Either durable metals or durable plastic. This shell is too thin and cheap. It feels like a soda can."

"Then it certainly can't have been one of yours," Rantaro said. "I'm going to take a guess and say your lab's got real flash bang grenades."

Mukuro nodded. "The question is, who could have made it?"

"HONK, HONK, HOOOOOOOOOONK!" Monokuma screamed through the school's intercom. "So, I feel like you guys had enough time to get your…BEARINGS TOGETHER…So, uh, why don't you lovely students head towards the elevator to get this show started? In case you're too stupid to remember, the elevator room is right across from the gymnasium. So…GET YOUR ASSES MOVING!"

Rantaro sighed. "It felt like we barely got to investigate." He turned around to the group. "Well, might as well get going."

"No!" Ibuki shouted.

Rantaro, Peko, and Mukuro were all caught off guard by the usually cheery rocker's sudden outburst. They saw that Ibuki was both seething with anger yet also on the verge of tears.

"Ibuki refuses to go!" Ibuki shouted again. "The class trials are where all…where all of my friends got killed…"

"We don't really have much of a choice," Mukuro said. "We don't go, we all die."

"I-I know that," Ibuki said softly. "But…I…I just don't want to see a friend die again."

"Ibuki," Rantaro stepped over and placed his hand on her shoulder. "I know you've been through a lot, we all have, but we can't beat this trial unless we do it together. As harsh as it is, the only way to protect your friends is if we go through with this. Do you understand?"

Ibuki nodded and wiped away some tears. She was clearly not any happier, but she didn't shout anymore. "Ok. I'll go."

Rantaro gave Ibuki sympathetic smile and led everyone out of the room. As they left, Peko glanced over to Ibuki. To see the constantly happy and energetic rocker solemn and sluggish. Peko couldn't help but frown at the sight. It just felt wrong.

Speaking of frowning, Sayaka frowned as she, Tenko, and Kaede moved away from Tsumugi's body. Having only investigated the body for a few minutes and being forced to leave for the trial was stressful.

"I feel like I barely got to do anything," Sayaka said.

Kaito scratched the back of his head. "Monokuma's really trying to screw us over on this."

"It's so unfair!" Tenko cried out. "He used to give us a lot of time to go over everything!"

"Oh boy," Junko said. She was the only one that was smiling during this whole ordeal. "Looks like you guys got your luck cut out for ya. I'm going to enjoy this."

Kaede crossed her arms and growled. "You're only incriminating yourself by acting like this, you know."

"So?" Junko shrugged. "You guys lose? I see you all filled with despair while I get away. I lose? I get filled with despair. Either way, I get off with despair."

Kaede shivered and turned away from the model. She was never really comfortable with discussions about people's kinks and fetishes, but "getting off" on the suffering of others and herself? Kaede needed a long, cold shower after all of this. As the group walked away, Sayaka glanced over to Tsumugi's body one last time. She didn't get to know Tsumugi all too well, but looking at her blue hair, the position her body was in, the knife in her chest, she couldn't help but feel sympathy for the poor cosplayer.

'We'll figure this out,' Sayaka thought to herself, as if her thoughts could communicate to the souls of the dead.

As she looked one last time, she felt something was…off. She didn't know what it was, but something didn't seem right about Tsumugi's body. Perhaps it was just the bad memories of herself laying against a wall, bleeding to death. But there wasn't any more time to think about it. She turned back to the rest of the group and followed them to the elevator.

When Sayaka, Tenko, Kaito, Kaede, and Junko entered the elevator room, they were greeted by everyone else. Even the previously unconscious students where wide awake and ready for the trial. Hiyoko had once again broken away from Mahiru to join Angie's side, Mondo was holding up Taka as it seemed the Ultimate Morale Compass was struggling to stand on his own, and Kirumi once again returned to Celeste's side.

Sayaka smiled as she approached Chihiro. "Are you feeling better, Chihiro."

Chihiro had a few bandages wrapped around her head, but she gave the idol a bright smile. "I am. I still feel a bit dizzy, but I can still stand by myself."

Nekomaru patted Chihiro on the back, although, his size and strength meant a simple pat on the back could nearly knock Chihiro off her feet. "Don't worry about her," he said. "She's gotten a lot tougher."

Chihiro blushed a bit. "I-I wouldn't say that."

Tenko cheered in delight as she saw the tiny programmer blush. "OHMYGOD! SHE'S SO CUTE!"

Chihiro gulped a bit at Tenko's reaction. "B-but in all seriousness, Mikan was the one who helped us out."

Sayaka looked over to the nurse. "She did?"

"Yes, she did," Kiyo spoke through his masked mouth. "It seems that the flash bang had returned her to her former state of being."

"Awww," Junko frowned. "I liked her better as an Ultimate Despair. Oh well, I can just say it again. M-"

Kaito covered Junko's mouth to prevent her from speaking anymore. "Yeah, we're not letting you do that again."

Hifumi broke off from the rest of the crowd and scanned the room. He grew from confused to frantic as he kept searching. He eventually turned to Sayaka and her group. "Wh-where's Miss Shirogane?"

The group went quiet after the question. Kaito frowned and stepped forward. "I'm sorry, man…"

Hifumi's eyes widened and shook his head. "N-no. D-don't about that. Please! She can't be dead!"

Tears began to pour down Hifumi face and he collapsed to his knees. He wept as he wiped away his tears and snot off with his sleeve. Kaede frowned and placed her hand on his back, trying to be as comforting as she can be.

Suddenly, Nagito entered the room. Everyone turned to him with a mixture of confusion and frustration. Nagito didn't seem to sense the anger, and he instead waved to everyone with big smile.

"Hello, everyone," Nagito said.

Mahiru immediately stormed over to Nagito and jabbed her finger against his chest. "Where the hell have you been?!" she shouted.

Nagito just laughed at Mahiru. "Oh, don't worry about me. I'm here now."

"That's not the point, you idiot!" Mahiru shouted again. "You disappeared without telling anyone! You better have a good explanation."

"Don't worry about it," Nagito kept up his smile. "I'm fine now."

"Dude, stop acting like an asshole," Leon said.

"No, keep acting like that!" Kokichi cheered.

"How about you all shut your traps?" Monokuma called out from behind them.

All of the students turned around to come face to face with the monochrome bear. Monokuma held his arms wide open as if he wanted to hug all of them. "I'm so glad all of you came here on time," he said with cheer in his voice. "I was getting a bit worried about some of you in the nurse's office."

Sakura growled. "Don't pretend to show empathy towards us."

"Indeed," Gundham said. "We all know you are nothing more than a creature of darkness. So, save your mindless brattle and get on with it."

Monokuma hung his head down. "I was just trying to be nice. Why do you guys got to-"

"SHUT UP!" Everyone shouted in unison.

Monokuma groaned. "Fine, fine, fine. Jeez! Kids these days."

Monokuma lifted up a tile from the floor and slipped right underneath it, disappearing from view. Not even a second after Monokuma disappeared, the elevator rose up to the floor and the elevator doors opened. It was spacious enough to fit everyone, but it certainly wouldn't be a comfortable ride. Especially with larger folks like Sakura, Hifumi, Byakuya, Nekomaru, and Gonta. Still, it seemed to be the only way to the trial room. Also, the lack of real lighting in the elevator was uninviting. They would be stuck in a dark, cramped, box for who knows how long. It was unnerving. And probably intentional.

"Well?" Monokuma spoke over the intercom. "Don't be scared. Step aboard, and let's get this show started."

Those much more experienced with the class trials stepped in first. Chiaki, Sakura, Kaito, and Nagito entered first. Then the rest of the group filed in after them. Sayaka was the most nervous person in the group and was hesitant to step any closer to the elevator.

'If he wanted, Monokuma could just drop us as soon as we entered and kill us all,' she thought to herself. 'Although, that doesn't seem to be his style…How did you they all deal with this? How did Makoto deal with this?'

"Sayaka," Chiaki called out. "We have to go."

Sayaka took one more deep breath and stepped inside. The elevator doors shut behind her and all light was completely gone. All she could do was wait as she listened the mechanisms of the elevator shift and hum as they descended into the depths below.

So, I must admit. This is the first time I've actually written a murder investigation in one of my writing projects. I've written someone finding bodies before, but not the actual investigation process before. It was challenging to try and remember to put all the clues together without making things too obvious. I don't know if I succeeded. I'm just glad we got to this point.

I'm also glad to have been doing more with these characters. Byakuya, Ibuki, Mukuro, and Rantaro get to shine here. I hope you guys agree. I know the class trial is going to give more characters time to shine. I don't know if I'll truly be able to replicate the style the games have for the trial. It will probably be more conversational. How's my pros by the way? Am I too repetitive and simplistic with descriptions?

Oh, I'd love to give a special shoutout to PebbleDragon78 for drawing fanart of Sayaka's redesign on his instagram. It actually meant a lot my story actual had some sort of impact on someone like that, especially before we even got to the heavier, more layered themes I plan on exploring. Thanks. And thanks for getting this story over 40,000 collective views. Stuff like that and your reviews actually keep me going with this. I hope I keep you all invested until the end.

I have said I'm looking for other sides to spread this story to and I have gotten a AO3 account. That won't really affect the story here outside of maybe more corrections to typos and stuff. I may morph my tumblr into something more useful. Like where to ask me questions or something? I don't really know yet, so we'll see.

Stick around. I promise this trial will be wild.