INVESTIGATION START:

Kaede elected to start at the scene of the murder, The normally quiet, dusty Library mainly because she was already there alongside: Shuichi, Tsumugi, Kirumi, Maki, Miu and Korekiyo.

Firstly, Kaede elected to check on the device that Monokuma had so ungraciously thrown into her hands.

MONOKUMA FILE #1

VICTIM: RANTARO AMAMI

HEIGHT: 179 CM

WEIGHT: 62 KG

TIME OF MURDER: 8:52 PM

LOCATION OF DEATH: LIBRARY

CAUSE OF DEATH: BLUDGEONING

EXTRA:

Victim is Rantaro Amami, he was killed in the Library at 8:52 PM, cause of death is being hit in the head with a shotput ball, victim died instantly.

"That's… very useful actually, I almost wanna thank Monokuma," Kaede said. "…Almost,"

+MONOKUMA FILE #1

Besides the Monokuma File, Kaede didn't know where to start, so she decided to ask the one person who she thought would know. The Ultimate Detective himself, Shuichi!

The man seemed to be lost in thought, looking up at the vent.

"Hey Shuichi,"

"Ah!"

"Sorry!"

Shuichi let out a breath. "I-It's fine, I'm just examining the vent,"

Kaede looked at the vent above the bookshelf Rantaro's corpse was near.

"It leads to the Lookout Classroom, I thought that was obvious,"

"It is just… the book I left open is still there," Shuichi pointed to the open book, Kaede saw it for herself and yep, the book was open just beneath the vent.

"Huh, you think that's a clue?"

"Maybe, let's just keep it in mind,"

"Alright!"

+LIBRARY-LOOKOUT CLASSROOM VENT

+OPEN BOOK ON BOOKSHELF

"Good luck with your investigation, Kaede," Shuichi said, but he seemed less enthusiastic than he had been recently.

Kaede elected to ignore it for now, there was more important stuff. "You got it, Shuichi, we'll reveal the truth!"

"Yeah…"

Kaede's looked around the library, trying to ignore the rotting corpse, the smell of which made her gag for now. She made a mental note of the Hidden Door in the meantime. The door had been closing when she came in here, so clearly it had something to do with it.

+HIDDEN DOOR

Kaede nearly gagged as she realised what the next logical step was, she shivered a little as she bit the bullet and looked down at the body, which Korekiyo was standing over.

A bloody dent in the man's head was the only visible injury, the only thing that could've caused it was the Shotput Ball, nothing Kaede didn't know already.

+SHOTPUT BALL

"Kehehe, how interesting,"

"Oh, what is it now, Kiyo?" Kaede looked up at the somewhat creepy man with a look of both curiousity and frustration.

"I was just thinking, before he left the party early Rantaro said something… odd…"

"Really? What is it?"

Korekiyo chuckled again. "He said that he knew a way to end the Killing Game, kehehe, perhaps the person behind all this took his threat seriously,"

"Maybe…" Kaede thought about it for a moment… wait!

"The note!"

"Hm?"

Kaede quickly shot up as she pulled the Mastermind's note out of her pocket. "When me and Shuichi were investigating the Library earlier, he found this note underneath the hidden door,"

Korekiyo read over the note, she could tell there was a smirk underneath his mask. "Interesting… perhaps Rantaro saw it too, perhaps he was trying to interrupt the mastermind's plan.

"That's what we were trying to do with the hidden cameras," Kaede said.

"Kehehe, perhaps it was a trap, to lure someone out to begin the Killing Game proper,"

Kaede stepped back in fear. "Y-You really think so?"

"I can't know for certain, but I do know that someone with an interest in ending the Killing Game would fall for something like that," Korekiyo said. "Someone like Rantaro,"

Kaede looked depressed as she made a mental note of this information, he only wanted to help us escape, and how he's…

+MASTERMIND'S NOTE

"Kehehe, hopefully we manage to make it through this trial alive,"

"Hopefully…" Kaede thought about it, she tried to ignore the voice telling her about how she would need to send one of her friends to their death for the group's survival.

Kaede distracted herself with more-

VRRRRR

Kaede ducked out of the way as a drone nearly hit her in the head, she looked over grumpily at the person she knew was controlling it: Miu, holding a remote control.

"Miu! Watch where you're moving that thing!" Kaede raised her voice.

"Eep!" Miu squealed. "I-I'm just tryin' to get a floorplan of the Library,"

"Oh… sorry for yelling at you, then,"

"Ya fucken' better be,"

Kaede sighed as she ignored Miu by going straight to Tsumugi.

"Hey Kaede, um…" Tsumugi mumbled, she looked depressed, not surprising considering the current situation everyone found themselves in. "We should probably get the photos the cameras took, right?"

"Right! We'll have to get them developed though-"

"Boo!"

"WAH!" Kaede yelped in shock as Kotoko appeared behind her, giggling like a schoolgirl as she jumpscared the poor Pianist.

"Kyahahaha, you're so adorbs when you're scared!"

"What do you want?" Kaede looked disgruntled at the Actress as she calmed down.

"I wanna develop your photos! Daddy used to be a photographer, so I have experience with these sort of things!"

"But wait, how can we know that you won't rip up any of the photographs?" Tsumugi raised an eyebrow.

Kotoko pouted. "Cause I can't! If I did that, Monaca would be sooooooo mad at me!"

"Monaca?" Kaede quirked an eyebrow, though not in as frustrated of a way as Tsumugi.

"Yeah, I love Monaca too much to make her angry!" Kotoko smiled as she moved towards the three cameras, quickly tearing them off of the walls and taking them with her.

"Bye bye, see you during the Trial!"

No one waved her goodbye, no one wanted to think about the Trial, but Kaede had to think about it as she continued to investigate.

"What a weird person… I don't know how a fellow Ultimate student could work with Monokuma," Tsumugi's face had a mix of confusion and frustration on it.

"Me neither, I've always found those guys kinda weird," Kaede said. "Have you seen them on TV at night?"

"Yeah, they're so strange,"

Kaede nodded as she continued to investigate around the Library.

+HIDDEN CAMERAS

FWOOOOOSH

Kaede suddenly heard the sound of the hidden door opening, it appeared that Shuichi was showing it off to the remaining people within the Library, minus Miu who was still struggling to control a Drone. She walked towards the small crowd, listening in on their conversation.

"Fascinating…" Korekiyo squinted at the door.

"The Mastermind planned to use this before the party ended, correct?" Kirumi asked, her voice as stern as ever.

"Y-Yeah, though-"

"That's the most obvious trap I've ever heard of," Maki interrupted. "It seems both you and Rantaro fell for it,"

"I-I guess that's a good point…"

Kaede gave Maki a small glare before deciding to investigate the hidden door herself, she noticed something about the card reader.

"The dust is still there,"

"Huh?" Shuichi focused his attention towards the card reader. "Oh, yeah it is,"

"That means the hidden door wasn't used, because if it was, the dust would've fallen out,"

"I see," Kirumi said. "Did one of you set that up?"

"I did," Shuichi confirmed. "This might be pretty important to the case, it confirms that no one entered the hidden room,"

"That's right! Good call for doing that, Shuichi!"

"Ah, thanks Kaede,"

+CARD READER DUST

"I don't think there's anything else in the Library," Kaede's eyes looked around the library, before her eyes landed on Maki. "Wait, Maki, you weren't at the party right?"

"Yeah, you gonna judge me for it?" The Child Caregiver (A title Kaede seriously doubted) grumbled.

"N-No, I just wanna know where you were,"

"I was in my dorm," Maki shrugged. "Miu can actually confirm my alibi,"

"Oh yeah, she left early too, right?"

"Yeah, I heard her coming to the dorms at about 8:10,"

"Alright, thank you Maki!" Kaede gave the woman a huge smile, Maki blushed a little and turned around.

"Don't mention it… seriously, don't,"

+MAKI'S ACCOUNT

"Oh, don't worry, I won't," Kaede giggled.

Realising that there was nothing left for the Library, Kaede elected to leave and investigate elsewhere.

The Game Room would take a little, so Kaede decided to walk up the stairs, and go into the Lookout Classroom alone.

The classroom was the exact same as she had left it-

Wait, the locker!

One of the originally closed lockers had been opened.

+OPEN LOCKER

Kaede also elected to make a mental note of the Receiver, pretty much anything was important to solving this case, and revealing the truth.

+RECEIVER ON KAEDE

With nothing else here, Kaede left for the Game Room, probably the final place she'd be able to investigate for this case. She walked back down to the Basement and into the colourful room, still decorated for the party.

Kaito, Gonta, Kokichi and Angie stood in the room, everyone else was probably in another room.

"Hey, hey, Kaede!" Kokichi called out. "Why are you here, I thought you were investigating the library?"

"Well… I was, but I wanna be thorough about this," Kaede said.

"Fair, fair," Kokichi gave a wry smile. "If you wanna be thorough, then maybe you should ask Gonta what he was doing while Rantaro was being beaten to death!"

"Hm?" The big man walked up to the two. "What Gonta do?"

"Yeah, I imagine he was at the party with everyone else, right?"

"Well… he spent most of it in the AV Room watching a 'Bug Movie'," Kokichi made quotation marks.

+GONTA ALONE

"Ah, sorry!" Gonta's eyes widened in nervousness. "Gonta not do well at parties, so he go watch bug movie to calm down,"

"It's okay, Gonta, you're not suspicious," Kaede patted the man on the back to reassure him, he blushed and chuckled.

"I mean, you kinda are," Kokichi shrugged.

"Kokichi!"

"What?"

Kaede sighed as she moved away from the annoying little liar. "Nevermind, see you around, Kokichi,"

"Nishishi, bye bye Kay Kay!"

Kaede shook her head as she moved towards Kaito and Angie who looked like they were conversing about something.

"Can't believe someone died during our party," Kaito sighed. "You think the culprit took advantage of it,"

"Nyahahaha! Almost certainly!" Angie was still smiling as she said that, Kaede was starting to get why people thought she was creepy now.

"Kind of a shitty thought…" Kaito was sweating as Kaede walked up to him.

"Hey you two," Kaede greeted with a tiny wave.

"Hiyah!" Angie's smile grew even wider. "Are you here to ask us for alibis?"

"Why is that your first thought, she's probably just here to talk to us,"

Kaede chuckled uncomfortably. "I'm… actually here to ask for alibis, heh,"

"Oh…"

"Well, everyone except: You, Shuichi, Tsumugi, Maki, Miu, Gonta and poor, sweet Rantaro was in this room while the murder was happening," Angie dragged out the vowels of everyone's name for emphasis. "So that means only they can be the murderer, nyahahaha!"

+KAITO'S PARTY

"Okay, thanks," Kaede nodded. "I'll be-"

"Actually, I have another thing to say!" Angie smiled.

"Really?" Kaito quirked an eyebrow.

Angie nodded rapidly. "Yes, yes, yes; while You and Shuichi were busy setting up your trap in the Library: Myself, Kaito, Kirumi, Rantaro and Tsumugi were busy setting up the party in here!"

"Oh, that actually is really helpful!" Kaede smiled. "Thank you Angie!"

"Nyahaha, bye-onara!" Angie waved rapidly as Kaede went to investigate more of the Game Room.

+PARTY PLANNERS

Kaede was going to investigate the AV Room, but felt like she was missing something in the Library… her eyes quickly glanced over to what she was missing.

The small, portable speaker sitting on the table near the food. The music that came from it was loud enough to be heard from the floor above, Kaede felt that would help her later.

+PARTY MUSIC

With nothing else obvious in the Game Room, Kaede walked into the AV Room.

It was a well sized room, with the main features being two couches in front of a large, rollable screen; there were shelves upon shelves of movies on the walls, and a sliding door at Kaede's right.

She tried to open it, but it got stuck, only being able to open a crack, Kaede noticed that the door lead to the Library's own sliding door.

+AV ROOM SLIDING DOOR

"Okay, I think that's pretty much it here, I wonder-"

DING DONG BING BONG

Kotoko appeared on the monitor, waving at the students with a big smile on her face. "Hey hey everyone! Come down to the Warehouse so I can show you the pictures that developed from Kaede and Shuichi's totally useless camera trap!"

Kaede sighed, even if what Kotoko said was kind of true.

She walked down to the library, grouping up with Shuichi and Tsumugi as she walked through the halls of the Ultimate Academy.

"H-Hey, Kaede,"

"Hi Shuichi, you look nervous," Kaede said.

"I-I think we're all a little nervous," Tsumugi mumbled. "I mean, if we fail this Class Trial we all die, so…"

"That's fair, I guess we all have a reason to be a little scared, but if we get too caught up in being nervous we'll never find the culprit," Kaede raised her voice slightly, just enough so that she'd get her point across to Tsumugi and Shuichi alone.

"I-I agree, we'll make it through this trial," Shuichi nodded.

"That's the spirit Shuichi," Kaede gave the detective a wide smile. "And Tsumugi, I wanna hear the same energy from you,"

"O-Oh, sure! I… we'll make it through this trial, together,"

"Yesssss!" Kaede pumped her first a little, the three continued to make a small amount of small talk as they finally reached the Warehouse alongside the rest of the students.

Everyone entered the Warehouse, Kotoko standing in the middle of it with the three cameras in her hands.

"Alright everyone, these photos should show us who killed Rantaro," Kaede said with a smile on her face. "We'll be able to get through this trial with no issue!"

"Great, I'm hoping to get this over with as soon as possible!" Kaito smiled.

"If that's true, this'll be the quickest trial to date!" Kotoko beamed as she handed the developed photos to Kaede.

The Three Front Entrance Photos were merely the three groups of people walking into the Library, alongside the Warriors of Hope exiting.

The Singular Rear Enrance Photo was of Rantaro entering the Library.

The two Hidden Door Photos were the most interesting, one of Rantaro interacting with the hidden door, holding his monopad in his hand, the lighting in this one was far brighter than the other photos.

The second one was of Rantaro right in front of the camera, seemingly either inspecting it, or trying to move it; once again, the lighting in this one was brighter.

+FRONT ENTRANCE PHOTOS

+REAR ENTRANCE PHOTOS

+HIDDEN DOOR PHOTOS

This… didn't really tell them who the culprit was, just where Rantaro entered the Library from.

"So, I guess this trial isn't gonna be quick, huh?" Kokichi shrugged. "Cause these photos don't tell us much,"

"Y-Yeah, sorry guys," Kaede looked down. "I got your hopes up again,"

"A-Ah Kaede, these are still useful for solving the case," Shuichi said. "They tell us that no one else entered the Library besides the people that we already know have,"

"That's a good point, Shuichi," Kaito gave another confident, haughty smile. "I can see why you're the Ultimate Detective,"

"Heh, that's the exact thing Kaede says," Shuichi smiled before his face returned to the frown he had since the body was discovered.

"Well, I guess that's it," Ryoma said in his incredibly deep voice. "Unless someone else has anything to say, that's-

DING DONG BING BONG

Monokuma appeared on the monitor, still sipping his champagne like a celebrity, and not like the psychotic teddy bear he was.

"Attention students, your investigation time is up! Please head to the Shrine of Judgement to begin the trial!" Monokuma began, a despairful glee evident in his high pitched voice. "Anyone who refuses to come will be torn apart by the Exisals, I'm sure you don't want that!"

"I don't want that either," Kotoko commented. "Killing you guys is so totally not adorbs!"

Ignoring the comment, Kaede looked around the Warehouse. She saw the look of calm dread on everyone's faces, knowing that they would have to send one of their friends to be executed for the crime of killing Rantaro lest they face the same fate themselves.

Kaede was prepared though, she was prepared to reveal the truth about this case.

Everyone walked out of the school in a large group, it was near pitch black due to how late at night it was. The group wandered their way to the large, cage shaped building in the courtyard in silence; they all gathered around the incredibly buff Monokuma statue that stood upon the fountain they had surrounded.

"This is it, huh?" Kaito was the first to speak.

"Preeeetty much, if we don't do this we get torn limb from limb," Kokichi gave a smirk.

"You seem far too happy about that!" Tenko shouted. "Out of everyone here, I swear you're the biggest degenerate of them all!"

"Kehehe… I do hope I get to witness the parts of humanity I expect of this trial…" Korekiyo mumbled to himself. "Oh, it'll be so beautiful!"

"Nevermind!"

"Nyeh… I hope this is quick… I wanna go to bed,"

"Me too, me too, Atua will be cross if this cuts into my praying time!"

"Let's just hope we can make it out of here alive," Kirumi said.

"Gonta hopes so too, Gonta still want to be friends with everyone,"

"Me too," Kaede said. "And if want that to happen, we need to cooperate in order to reveal the truth,"

"You say that, but the last time we cooperated it led to us being tired and hurt," Maki said.

"Maki," Kaito grunted.

Kaede sighed. "That's true, but, I have a good feeling about it this time,"

"Let's hope this isn't like the rest of your good feelings," Maki rolled her eyes.

As the conversation ended, the statue in the fountain began to shudder and shake. It crushed the pot in its hands, pointed at the students and then sunk into the water below.

The fountain itself then transformed into a bridge leading to what looked like a large elevator, big enough to hold all 15 students with plenty of room to spare.

Wordlessly, everyone entered the elevator, uneasy silence fell over the students as they descended below, the tension making the journey feel like hours.

"Hey, Shuichi,"

The Detective looked to his side as the Pianist spoke to him. "Yeah Kaede?"

"I know this whole things looks scary, but don't be afraid of revealing the truth,"

"I swear you already told me this," Shuichi gave a small smile.

Kaede chuckled. "And you're the kind of person who needs a reminder, y'know?"

"I guess that's right," Shuichi sighed, he looked lost in thought for a moment as he continued to descend. "I'll… do my best to reveal the truth,"

"That's all I ask of you,"

Eventually, the elevator hit the floor, and the group of students spilled out into the trial room.

The trial room was large, with 16 witness stands, one for each student. One had been decorated with a picture of Rantaro's face crossed out with two question marks, a reminder of the friend they had lost.

The only other thing of note was a throne surrounded by five other seats. Monokuma sat upon the throne as the King of this twisted game, the Warriors of Hope sat in each of the seats sans Monaca who sat in her wheelchair.

Everyone stood in a witness stand, and prepared for the trial of Rantaro Amami.

In the back of my mind, I still couldn't believe that one of us was a murder. I couldn't believe one of us was capable of killing someone else, but for the sake of every one of my friends I needed to put that aside in order to find the truth.

CLASS TRIAL, START:

TRUTH BULLETS:

MONOKUMA FILE #1

LIBRARY-LOOKOUT CLASSROOM VENT

OPEN BOOK ON BOOKSHELF

HIDDEN DOOR

SHOTPUT BALL

MASTERMIND'S NOTE

HIDDEN CAMERAS

CARD READER DUST

MAKI'S ACCOUNT

OPEN LOCKER

RECEIVER ON KAEDE

GONTA ALONE

KAITO'S PARTY

PARTY PLANNERS

PARTY MUSIC

AV ROOM SLIDING DOOR

FRONT ENTRANCE PHOTOS

REAR ENTRANCE PHOTOS

HIDDEN DOOR PHOTOS