"Okay, then who did do it!?" Mondo asked furiously. He looked ready to throw the trial out and dish out the punishment. TK partially shared the biker's conviction because he was tired of the whole trial. He was happy that everyone believed he didn't kill Sayaka, but he wanted to figure out who did it as soon as possible.

"I'm sorry, but I give up! Quit without saving!" Hifumi declared as if he were in a video game. Everyone subconsciously chose to ignore him and pay their attention back to the topic at hand.

"But… what happens if we can't decide on who we think did it…?" Chihiro asked, raising an important question. If they can't figure out who did it then do the same rules apply if they voted for the wrong person or do they all get punished? It's something that they don't want to find out and extra motivation for the killer if the latter is true.

"Well then, why don't we just vote right now? Majority rules!" Taka suggested. Almost everyone looked at him like he grew two heads.

"Majority rules? Do you really think that's a good idea…?" Leon questioned. TK agreed with him. Since the start of the trial, the only suspect that they had was him, and since he just proved his innocence they have no one that they could say for sure did it. It wasn't a gamble he was willing to take.

"Yeah! Our necks are on the line here! Someone seriously needs to do something. For serious…!" Hiro pleaded after he agreed with the baseball player.

"Does no one have any other thoughts or questions?" Celeste asked. "It does not matter how trivial they may seem…"

"Oh! As a matter of fact, I have a question!" Hina said confidently.

"Oh… you…" Celeste said disappointedly.

"You don't gotta sound so disappointed!"

"It's fine, it's fine, just ask your question!" Taka said to prevent an argument that wasn't related to the case.

"Oh yeah! Okay, so, umm… Well, I was just wondering, how'd the culprit get into TK's room in the first place?" Hina asked and her question hit everyone like a truck. How could they forget something important such as how the killer broke in?

"Hmm… Yes, how did the killer get inside?" Sakura repeated Hina's question.

"Maybe Sayaka just dropped the key somewhere and the culprit picked it up. That's possible, right?" Leon theorized.

"I don't think so. That seems way too convenient," Taka shot down Leon's theory.

"Then… maybe someone picked the lock?" Chihiro threw out but Taka shook his head.

"Negative! If you remember, Monokuma made it quite clear that the locks are all unpickable."

"Fine, how about this? The killer got in the easy way. They could've knocked and said they wanted to talk or something, and Miss Maizono just… let 'em in!" Hifumi said proudly.

"That's not it," TK refuted.

"O-ho! Trying to argue against me? Sounds like someone doesn't know his place! Hello!? Why, exactly, can't that be it!?" Hifumi asked dramatically.

"She was scared. It's the main reason we switched rooms in the first place. So, I have a hard time believing she would open the door to anyone," TK answered.

"...What if her being scared was a lie?" Kyoko interjected. Some of the students looked at her with confused expressions. TK noticed that Byakuya had a sly smirk etched across his face.

"What are you talking about!? Why would she lie about that!?" TK said angrily. He knew he should calm down but he didn't like that Kyoko was accusing Sayaka of deceiving him.

"I know you don't want to consider it, but look at this and tell me…" Kyoko held up a piece of paper that had been colored over by pencil, revealing an imprint of words. She passed the paper around, leaving each student stunned after they read it. "Can you still deny the possibility?"

The note finally got to him and when he read what was written on it, TK felt a little sick.

"There's something I want to talk to you about, just us two. In five minutes, come to my room. Check the nameplate to make sure you don't get the wrong room, okay?"

TK passed the note along to give everyone else a chance to read it. He ran a hand through his hair as he tried to figure out his emotions. He was sad, angry, and confused but he mostly felt heartbroken. He didn't want to believe that his friend would lie to manipulate him into giving her his room so she could meet up with someone else.

'I thought we formed some kind of connection. Guess I was wrong,' TK thought to himself sadly.

"I found a notepad during my search, and I shaded in the top sheet with a pencil. And these are the words that appeared," Kyoko explained when the note got back to her.

"Oh man, I've totally seen people do that on detective shows!" Hina said excitedly. "When you write, it can leave an imprint. Sketch over the next sheet of paper, and you can see the words! When I saw that, I was like, 'Holy crap! I better make sure I rip the paper out before I use it from now on!'"

"It's a pretty old-fashioned technique, but even the classics can be surprisingly useful sometimes," Kyoko said proudly. "Oh, and I should also mention… I found the notepad on the desk in Takeru's room."

Everyone was taken aback when Kyoko revealed that information. None were more surprised than TK. There was still a small sliver part of his heart that believed Sayaka didn't lie to him, but when Kyoko revealed that the note came from his room, he was met with the cold reality of the situation. Sayaka invited the killer into his room.

But why would she do that? What reason did she have to switch rooms with him in the first place?

"Which means, only someone who had been in Takeru's room before the incident could have written it," Kyoko spoke up after a few seconds to allow everyone to get their bearings.

"Then either it was Takeru, who lived there, or Sayaka, who switched rooms for a single night…" Byakuya gathered from the evidence that was given.

"So, Takeru… did you write this?" Kyoko held up the note and TK shook his head.

"No, but–"

"Of course you didn't. Because the note also bears a perfectly legible signature– Sayaka's signature," Kyoko explained before TK could make any excuse for Sayaka.

"But why would she write that?" TK questioned.

"The note was likely her way of getting in touch with a certain someone. She must have slid it under their door to let them know she wanted to meet with them in secret," Kyoko hypothesized.

"If you got an invitation like that from the Ultimate Pop Sensation, what young man could resist?" Hifumi said with a trail of drool coming from his mouth. After receiving a few glares from the others, the fanfic creator wiped the drool from his mouth and cleared his throat. "Of course, I'm only into 2D so it wouldn't have any effect on me!"

"...But can we be sure anyone even got this note? And honestly, even if they did, I do not think they are at all involved in what happened," Celeste stated, causing a few eyebrows to raise.

"Huh? What makes you say that?" Chihiro questioned.

"Hmhm… Would you like to hear what I have to say? Very well, then. Pay attention!" Celeste ordered everyone with a devilish smirk. "Sayaka and Takeru switched rooms, correct? But in the note, the place they were asked to come to, it specifically says 'my' room."

"I see… So if someone read that note… then they would have gone to Sayaka's room!" Chihiro understood what Celeste was explaining.

"Exactly. The room that Takeru was staying in."

"There's one problem with that," TK the gambler. He saw she was a little peeved that he interrupted her, but she allowed him to explain himself. "Sayaka's and my nameplates were switched."

"They got… switched?" Celeste said in surprise.

"That's right. The nameplates got switched, just like the rooms themselves," Kyoko said to back up TK's claim. "As a result, the nameplate on Sayaka's room actually had Takeru's name and the nameplate on Takeru's room had Sayaka's."

"So what you're saying is, the room Sayaka staying in, was actually marked as her room," Byakuya summarized.

"Then… if someone did do what the note said, they would end up at Takeru's room, where Sayaka was…" Chihiro said sadly.

"Plus, their rooms are right next to each other. So switching the nameplates would be no problem," Kyoko added before turning to TK. "And the one who switched the names was… Well of course it wasn't you, right Takeru?"

"Right."

"Okay… then who did it?" Leon asked the question that was swimming in everyone's mind.

"Sayaka, other than me, she was the only one who knew about us switching rooms," TK answered.

"You can also infer as much from her note, she specifically tells the reader to check the nameplate," Kyoko pointed out the detail from the note. "She would only have written that if she knew the nameplates had been switched."

"But… why would she switch them in the first place?" Chihiro inquired.

"She wanted someone to come to the room she was in, and also hide the fact that it was Takeru's room," Kyoko answered.

The same questions still swirled around his head. He still didn't know why Sayaka would invite someone over to his room or why they switched rooms in the first place. Hell, the deeper they go into this trial more questions started to form than answers.

"Inviting someone to 'you' room, but telling them you'd switched rooms… Why would anyone do that?" Hina asked, just as lost in the questions as TK.

"To understand that we first need to understand what happened after she invited the person into the room. That's where the answer lies…" Kyoko told everyone.

"What happened then was… probably… Whoever she invited over… came in, and… attacked her!" Taka said before coming to a realization. "We figured it out! We know who did it! Whoever she invited over is the culprit!"

"But we still don't know who it is, ya goddamn idiot…" Mondo quietly muttered the last part to himself.

"Sayaka fought with her killer there in the room, yes? Perhaps the answer to our previous question lies in that initial struggle," Celeste said to put focus on that part of the investigation.

"Yes, I think you're right," Kyoko agreed.

"Then… we just have to figure out what happened during the fight, right!?" Hina said.

"That reminds me… There was a replica sword at the murder scene. Was that perhaps used during the fight?" Sakura inferred.

"Oh yeah, what's the deal with that sword?" Mondo asked TK.

"Sayaka said I should take it to decorate my room or use it for self-defense," TK answered before remembering how it looked during the investigation. "I think the killer most likely used it to break Sayaka's right wrist."

"How the hell could you possibly know that's what broke her wrist!?" Leon questioned.

"On her wrist, right where it was swollen, there was gold paint," TK told everyone.

"Gold paint…?" Chihiro repeated with her head cocked to the side.

"Yes. It came from the replica sword. You just have to touch it once and the paint will stick right on you," TK explained. "So, since it's on her wrist…"

"I got it! Because she got hit with the sword, right there on her wrist!" Taka interrupted TK and the blond gave the moral compass a deadpan stare.

"I see, I see… And so the truth draws ever…" Hifumi said strangely.

"Alright! Then it's about time to solve this mystery!" Hiro proclaimed. TK believed they were getting close to figuring out who murdered Sayaka, but they're still a few more things they need to figure out, and the first up is finding out what happened in his room.

"When the fighting broke out the culprit grabbed the sword. And that's when the first blow was dealt!" Hiro started to detail what he thought happened. "A sword-based sneak attack!"

"I don't think that's what happened," TK interrupted Hiro. "I don't think the fight started with the sword."

"Huh? Why not?" Hiro asked who was lost by what TK said.

"The sheath was scratched," TK said and he received some confused looks. "There was a large gash on the sheath. The people who were in my room during the investigation can vouch for what I said."

"It was most likely caused by something sharp… like a knife. That was the only sharp thing found at the scene…" Chihiro said softly.

"Stop jumpin' ahead! Slow down and explain it so I get what the hell's goin' on!" Mondo demanded.

"If you were to attack someone with a sword then you would take the sheath off first. So, if the sword was used first then it wouldn't make sense for there to be a scratch on the sheath," TK explained slowly, not only for Mondo but for anyone who was lost in the debate.

"That's true. With the sheath on, it'd be heavy and bulky and useless as shit," Mondo added after understanding what everyone was talking about.

"Okay, so how did the sheath get damaged?" Hifumi asked the important question.

"If they got attacked with the kitchen knife, maybe they grabbed the sword as a defensive impulse. In that situation, there wouldn't be any time to actually unsheathe the sword," Kyoko answered.

"So you're saying the sword was initially used to defend against an attack from the knife…" Sakura presumed.

"Which means whoever had the kitchen knife… was the one who attacked first!" Hifumi figured out while adjusting his glasses.

"I think I get it! So here's how it all played out…" Taka declared. "The culprit came in, found the kitchen knife hidden there somewhere. Then they took the knife and attacked Sayaka before she knew what was happening! So she grabbed the sword to defend herself, but then the culprit took that from her, too…! Then, after they broke her wrist with the sword… they took the knife and… finished it…"

Taka quieted down when he received a mixture of confused and deadpanned stares. It was a good attempt at guessing what happened but it was all over the place. Nothing that Taka hypothesized seemed to gel together.

"Sorry, but I don't think Sayaka used the sword to defend herself," Kyoko spoke up.

"Wh–!? How the hell can you not think that!?" Leon aggressively questioned.

"Because she never held the sword at all. There's a certain part of her body that makes this clear," Kyoko stated.

"Her palms, right?" TK raised and Kyoko nodded. "Her hands were clean, so Kyoko was right about Sayaka not picking up the sword.

"How can you know that just by looking at her palms…?" Hina asked.

"I said earlier that the gold paint will stick to you if you touch it," TK answered before remembering what the sword looked like. "I think that a lot of the gold came off of the handle if I remember correctly. I think it's a safe bet to assume that whoever used the sword got some of the paint on their hands. I can't think of a possibility where she touched the sword and came away clean."

"Maybe she w-washed her hands after she e-escaped into the bathroom…" Toko suggested.

"I don't think she did that," TK said.

"Why d-do you say that? Is it b-because you think I'm u-ugly…?" Toko said defensively.

"NO!" TK exclaimed quickly. "The Monokuma said that Sayaka's death was around 1:30 a.m. The water is shut off at nighttime so there is no way Sayaka would be able to wash her hands."

"Oh… I didn't know that. Actually… I haven't taken a shower here yet…" Toko awkwardly admitted. She quickly received disgusted looks as the people around her covered their noses.

"Oh my…" Hifumi said disgustedly.

"Y-You're no different! You s-smell like a big f-fat ugly donkey!" Toko shot back.

"Hmm? I'm not sure whether to take that as an insult or a compliment!" Hifumi said while sweating like a pig.

"An insult, obviously…" Leon sighed while dragging a hand down his face. Taka then cleared his throat to get everyone back on track.

"So, anyway, if Sayaka never touched the sword, then that means… The killer is the only one who used the sword," Taka said before realizing something about the case. "But hold on. If that's right, then the one who damaged the sheath with the kitchen knife was…"

"Sayaka…? She had the kitchen knife…?" TK said in disbelief.

"But… we already said that the attack started with…"

"The person with the knife attacked first, and the sword was used as an impromptu defense," Byakuya conveyed while interrupting the programmer.

"Then the one who attacked first was…!" Hifumi screeched in bewilderment.

"S-Sayaka!?" TK managed to choke out.

TK ran his hands through his hair, not caring that he knocked his hat to the ground. He couldn't believe that Sayaka was the one to instigate the whole thing. Thinking back on the evidence, it was obvious that she planned out the whole thing, he just chose to ignore that part of his brain telling him that.

"Now do you understand? She wasn't a blameless victim in this," Kyoko told everyone, but mostly to TK.

"No, far from it. It's almost as if… she had been planning to commit a murder of her own," Byakuya said with a sly smirk. "She took the knife from the kitchen, then invited the culprit to the room she was staying in. And if it's true that she had the kitchen knife and attacked without provocation…"

"Indeed… these are all the actions of an assailant," Sakura agreed with the heir.

"Which brings up another point… Takeru, Sayaka was the one who suggested you two switch rooms, correct? Maybe the reason why she wanted to switch rooms was so that she could pin the crime on you. That's a possibility, is it not?" Celeste questioned.

TK couldn't even muster up a response. He was having a hard time comprehending that Sayaka tried to kill someone and now learning that she possibly tried to frame him for the crime, broke his heart. He put his head down on his podium to give himself a break from everything.

"That would also explain why she would switch the nameplates," Celeste added to her theory. "She wanted to get whoever she had targeted to come to Takeru's room, where she was staying, and by committing the murder there, instead of her room, that would implicate Takeru. But for that to work, the target had to be lured out while still keeping the room swap a secret. If the target knew she had switched rooms, they would have become suspicious right away."

"So that's why she switched the names…?" Mondo questioned.

"But doesn't that plan seem a little risky?" Hifumi pondered. "For one thing, even if her plan worked, Mr. Takaishi would just tell everyone they'd switched rooms."

"I don't know… I'm not sure Takeru is capable of that kind of cutthroat behavior. I'm sure Sayaka realized the same thing, which is why out of all of us, she asked him to switch rooms."

TK mulled over what Byakuya said. He would like to say that the heir is wrong, but he's not even 100% sure he would be able to do that. Hell, there's still a part of his brain telling him that Sayaka didn't try to frame him.

"P-Plus… she was the Ultimate Pop Sensation. A t-totally forgettable kid, o-or a national superstar… Who are you m-more likely to believe?" Toko added and TK could hear the others mutter to themselves about what Toko said.

"Wait, then… you're saying she had this all planned out…?" Hifumi staggered.

"Holy shit!" Mondo muttered loudly.

"But in the end, her plan backfired," Celeste stated grimly. "She launched her attack with the knife, then found herself under attack in turn. That must be when her wrist got broken, and she was forced to drop the knife."

"The tables were suddenly turned on her, and she died at the hands of the one she'd planned to murder…" Sakura said softly. There was a moment of silence for their fallen classmate which was broken up by a loud sigh coming from Monokuma.

"Gosh, you're all super boring right now! Come on, hurry up and decide who did it or I'll punish you all!" Monokuma threatened.

"Oh yeah… We gotta decide who we think did it…" Hiro reminded everyone.

TK kept his head down, not caring about the trial. He doesn't want to figure out who killed Sayaka anymore after the heartbreak he felt during the past few minutes. 'The others can decide who did it. The outcome be damned.'

"Takeru, right now you just need to concentrate on figuring out the answer to this mystery," Kyoko's words broke through his mind. He brought his head up to see her giving him a stern yet encouraging look. "If we can't uncover who murdered Sayaka, it's over for all of us…"

'She's right. I can't beat myself up right now or we'll all die. But what's left?' TK started to ponder what clues they haven't talked about yet. 'There's the stuff I found in the trash room but burnt clothes and shattered glass aren't going to help us. Then there are the numbers that Sayaka wrote before she…'

TK remembered one last clue from the crime scene. He turned to Leon who was nervously grinning. "It's easy just to say, 'Hey, decide who did it!' But there just aren't any more clues, right?"

"Hold on, there's still one clue left– Sayaka's dying message," TK interjected.

"Dining– wait, what did you say?" Leon asked, failing to understand what the blond brought up.

"The dying message," Kyoko repeated. She then pulled out a piece of paper from her coat that had the number 11037 on it. After taking a closer look at it, TK could tell that it almost looked exactly like the one Sayaka wrote. "She wrote these numbers on the wall behind her, remember? 11037, written in her own blood. There must be a clue about the killer hidden in there…"

"Well, before we get too far into that, I need to ask. Can we really be sure that Sayaka is the one who wrote it?" Celeste asked.

"She had blood on her left index finger. She must've used that finger to write the message," TK told her.

"I see… She broke her right wrist during the fight, so she'd have to use her left hand to write," Taka remembered.

"Sure, I think we can all agree Sayaka wrote it, but still… What the heck do those numbers mean? 11037?" Hina questioned.

"Hey Chihiro, you're a computer nerd or whatever, right? You should know all about numbers and shit!" Mondo demanded the computer programmer.

"N-No, that's not…" Chihiro took a few quick breaths to collect herself. "Yes, I'm a programmer, but I don't see any kind of meaning in these numbers."

"...Of course. It's because they're not numbers," Kyoko revealed.

"Can you pass the paper to me?" Hifumi asked and Kyoko passed it along to her classmates until it reached Hifumi. Hifumi looked over the paper and noticed something. "Oh! Yeah, it looks like…"

"Huh? What? What!?" Mondo was getting antsy standing around and was about ready to bash someone's head in.

"No, it's just… look at the numbers assuming they're not numbers. Don't these first two, 11, look less like two numbers and more like one letter?" Hifumi passed it along, and everyone noticed the same thing he did.

"Ah, you're right!" Chihiro exclaimed after she saw the paper. "The connecting line is barely there, so I assumed it was 11, but… Looking at it now, you could also read it as an N!"

"Whoa! You might've finally just said something worth a shit!" Mondo complimented the fanfic writer in his own way. Hifumi creepily laughed as a response.

"Our little grey cells are getting excited now!" Hifumi said weirdly and TK saw Mondo quietly revoke his compliment.

"But even if that really is an N, 'N037' doesn't make any more sense than before…" Sakura sadly told everyone.

TK called for the paper again and when it reached him, he studied it closely. 'If I use Hifumi's logic then the 0 should be an O, but then what would 37 be? What if I rotate it…' After TK rotated the paper his eyes widened.

"Sayaka wrote down the killer's name!" TK exclaimed quickly that the others almost missed what he said.

"Huh!? You just shot past the clue part and right on to who did it!" Hina said, surprised.

"So wh-whose name did sh-she write…?" Toko slightly demanded.

"If you flip the numbers upside down and consider how Sayaka wrote them, then 11037 becomes the letters L-E-O-N," TK explained to them. Everyone then turned to the suspect who was blue in the face, sweating profusely and had a horrified expression.

"The killer is Leon!"