Danganronpa: Algorithmic Alteration Chapter 9: Continuity Error (Part 7), a dangan ronpa kibou no gakuen to zetsubou no koukousei fanfic

Chapter 1: Continuity Error (Deadly Life Part 2)

Warning: This is a Danganronpa fic. There's going to be a lot of violence, gore, and blood. And maybe a few other things. You've been warned (somewhat)

It was another rough day. The weather wasn't the best, and Sonia Andes found herself struggling at yet another shelter. It'd be fine if she had no other mouths to feed. Of course, that wasn't the case as she clutched her daughter. For now, her daughter was calm, but there was no telling how long that would last.

All while feeding her, she heard some of the things being spoken around her. Normally it was all gloomy news, but for once, it was something positive that she was overhearing.

"Did you hear about the Yorke Troupe?"

"Yeah, they've been visiting places just like these. They're in the area today."

York Troupe? To her it sounded like a circus, and while it's not something that would help her long term, maybe just a brief change of pace would be enough to improve her mood. "You hear that Tatiana?" She rocked her back and forth. "The circus will be here today." She offered a smile.

…

When it was finally time, the main man of the show stepped onto the makeshift stage. "Ladies and gentleman." He called out to the audience. "My name is Harvey Novak, and tonight I bring you… Yorke Troupe!" He motioned his hands to the other performers. Lowering his hands, he turned his attention back towards the audience. "Get ready for a night of thrills, a night of excitement. A night of-" He cut himself off as his eyes landed on a certain individual.

Sonia had caught his attention, and he had to let out a small cough to break himself free. "A night to remember!" He added after the fact.

And what night it was, from the clown acts to the knife throwing, it was hard to not put on a smile to the free show they'd be given.

Even Tatiana stayed up later than she normally would have, her eyes locked on whichever performer was up and about.

But sadly, the show couldn't stay forever, and the mundane life would return to normal.

That is, until Sonia was approached by someone.

"Lovely night, tonight, am I right?" It was the man who introduced the troupe, Harvey.

She was unsure how to react to that, so she glanced the other way. "Y-yeah, I suppose so."

For a few seconds, the two remained in silence, before being broken by Harvey again. "As mentioned, I'm Harvey Novak, and while I'm not the owner of the Yorke Troupe, I am a big part of it." He extended his arm out.

She remained cautious, but still decided to shake his hand. "And why are you talking to me?" She didn't feel there was much need to.

"Well… Truth is…" How could he explain this in the best way possible? He kept his head facing the ground as he thought of an answer. "Love at first sight, I guess." He looked back up at her. "Would you go out with me?"

"I…" To say she was caught off guard was an understatement. This came so much out of left field, she could feel the gears in her brain shutting down completely. "W-why?" She finally managed to utter.

He felt like the reason was pretty obvious, but he was going to restate it. "Like I said, love at first sight."

And for that reason… He wanted to go out with her? She didn't trust it one bit. "I'm not sure if you want to get involved… I already have a daughter." She had positioned herself so Tatiana was obstructed, but now she was clear as the night sky.

And yet, he didn't seem to falter. "My proposition still stands."

Running the outcomes through her mind, she still felt caution… And yet, this could turn out to be a good thing. If the date goes poorly, then the two just return to normal. However… If things turn out well, there's a slight chance that things could change for the better. "Alright…" She mumbled out. "I'll go."

He was surprised to hear an answer right away from her, but he wasn't going to waste this chance. He flashed her a smile. "Alright! You won't regret it!"

…

Although the date wasn't like any typical date. Instead of going out somewhere, Harvey had invited Sonia into his house. "I know this probably isn't what you're expecting. But I thought you'd like a home cooked meal."

While she didn't trust being in the house of a man she had just met, she didn't want to turn everything down just now. "It's… It's fine…" Although she still held her suspicions. She made sure to clutch Tatiana the entire time. She didn't want her out of her reach at any point tonight.

However, nothing bad seemed to happen, and soon, for the first time in forever, Sonia had some actual food in her system. At first, she ate it slowly. But, after realising nothing was off with the food, she ate a bit more quickly.

And while Harvey didn't have any baby food in his house, he went out of his way to make sure Tatiana could have something to eat as well. "I wasn't sure what you liked, so I hope it's up your alley."

She wasn't picky at this point in her life. She'd take any food. "No, no… It was really good." She glanced away. And yet, this air of suspicion didn't seem to fade away. "Why… Why are you doing this?" She knew that he was withholding information from her. "Be honest with me."

That smile he had faded slightly. He owed it to her at the very least. "I…" He trailed off, thinking of what to say next. "Meeting you today did not fall to chance. I can tell you that." Although that might have raised a few flags right away, he continued anyway. "Back in high school, I was friends with a rather ambitious man. He always had his goals set in mind, and he was always able to complete them. He was great at socialising, and people tended to gravitate towards him." He shifted his focus towards the plate on the table. "After graduating, it didn't take long for him to switch over to politics."

Hearing those words, Sonia couldn't help but shiver slightly. Then, she turned her attention away from him. "Continue…" She had a feeling where this was going, and it wouldn't be good.

"He was great when I knew him. A good man with good goals in mind. Someone to look up to… However, when his political career began to grow… I began to hear… unsavoury rumours."

Here it was… Sonia braced herself for what she was going to hear next.

Harvey turned his head away. "Since he was an old friend, I held out hope that the rumours weren't true. But… The more I dug around, the more the validity of them were proven time and time again. He seemed to have continuously gotten into illicit relationships with his secretaries." His head slowly turned to face her. "Including you." Although, he said that with a bit of sadness in his voice.

Even knowing that the conversation was leading to this point, she found it hard to come up with any words to say. "Then… Why meet up with me?"

That was a good question… "The more I looked into it, the more it seemed apparent that the secretaries had been making moves on him instead."

"That's not true-" She raised her voice slightly, but didn't want to yell at him.

"Of course, rumours are rumours, and I don't take anything at face value." He tipped his hat down. "After doing a bit more digging, your name popped up." He glanced over at Tatiana. "That's his, isn't it?"

She clutched onto her daughter. "What of it…?"

He had figured as much. "You've lost your position in the political world because of that scandal, and now you're living like this." What kind of man would he be to not extend a hand out to help a person like that. "My home is your home."

"Huh?" It was all too much for her. On one hand, she still didn't trust him, and he knew more about her than she would have liked. On the other hand, the idea of going back to living how she had been for the last couple of years… She just couldn't do it. Not when she had Tatiana with her.

She needed a better life than the current one she had. "I… Thank you."

Harvey let out a sigh of relief.

…

The first few days felt strange to Sonia, as she had basically been staying at the house of a stranger. And yet she couldn't leave at all.

Although, the good news for her was that Tatiana seemed much more lively than normal. She often found Tatiana wandering off, interested in the memorabilia scattered around the house, all having to do with the Yorke Troupe.

A few times she even had to stop her daughter from falling down after climbing up something. And while it was nerve wracking to always have to watch her around the house. It also felt… relieving. Unreal. Several different words appeared in her head at the thought that the three years of hell had all but vanished for the time being. That something normal had finally been attained. How long would it last? That was a thought that Sonia had feared, but for the time being, she pushed it to the back of her head.

Most of the time she was home alone with Tatiana, as Harvey was off at the circus. However, whenever he arrived home, things always changed.

For one, Tatiana had taken an interest in him, greeting him at the door whenever he walked into his house. "Hey Tatiana." He knelt down so they could be face to face. "How have you been?"

The young girl let out a laugh as she ran off towards one of the many knickknacks around his house.

Seeing this, it put a smile on his face. "Seems she's taking an interest in my things." He followed her around. Once he had reached her again, he knelt down, holding out a hand.

After a few seconds, Tatiana pushed her own hand against him, giggling as she did so.

All Sonia could do was watch on in amazement. It's almost like Tatiana had a father figure in her life for the first time. It was almost enough to make her cry, but she couldn't do that in front of Harvey.

Seeing all of this unfold in front of her, Sonia came up with the conclusion that everything would end up working out. While Harvey's entrance into her life had been unexpected and a bit on the weird side, she knew now that it might have been a blessing to meet this man.

At the time of first meeting him, she didn't know what to think of him. However now, she slowly began to enjoy his company, and now, she felt like she was really starting to like him. A future with a man like him.

There was an ominous silence as everyone stood around their podiums, unsure how to proceed. In the empty spot where Alan would have been, there was a picture of him with an X across his face.

The one to break the silence wasn't any of the nineteen participants. Instead, it was Monokawa. "Guess nobody knows what to do here, huh?" He floated away from the large seat, placing himself directly in the middle of all the podiums. "But that's what I'm here for!" He raised a paw in the air. "Here to make things run smoothly!" He let out a few fake coughs before he floated upwards.

"Welcome to the space trial. Here, you will be working together to figure out who murdered Alan! Or, let me use terms specified in the rules. The person you are looking for is the blackened. The person who committed the crime. Your job is to debate amongst yourselves on how you think the incident took place, and ultimately figure out who the killer is. Once you've come to an agreement, you may all vote for who you think it is. If you're correct…" He lifted his paws in the air. "Then congrats! You win! But if you vote for the wrong person…" His eyes began to flicker a bit, before going out completely. Quickly after, Monokawa crashed to the ground, inoperable. He remained there for a few seconds before the light of his eyes began to flicker again. Now that he was on again, he floated back up. "I think you get the point. You don't want to choose the wrong person." A dark gleam appeared in his jagged eye.

Ian raised an eyebrow at the explanation. "Are you saying we have until we make an agreement to figure out who the killer is?"

The otter shrugged. "Pretty much. Is there a problem with that?"

A smile slowly formed on his face. "It's just that… couldn't we stall out the trial for as long as we wanted? Doesn't seem that much of a game."

Staring at him for a few seconds, Monokawa pondered that statement. "Alright!" He clapped his paws together, and soon a timer appeared on the wall behind the large chair Nova was sitting on. The time displayed was two hours. "You've convinced me."

This did not sit well with… almost anyone in the room. "What the hell are you thinking?" Sakura narrowed her eyes. "Why the hell would you want to limit our time?"

"Ian!" Seira took a step back. "We already don't have much to work with!"

The gambler raised his hands to try and defend himself. "I was just curious, that was all. Besides, they already had the timer made. It's possible that it was just going to run in the background the entire time. Now we can see it."

"Alright, alright!" Gemini raised his hands to try and calm everybody down. "This doesn't change what we have to do. We have to find the killer." Loading up the station report on his watch, he gave it another read. "We know two things about him. The cause of death was strangulation, and we also know he was injured by a blade. Not only that, but he had some puncture wounds on his stomach." He placed a hand on his hip. "We haven't found the weapon in question."

Wanting to follow suit in what Gemini was doing, Seira spoke up. "We investigated the kitchen, but all of the knives were clean. Granted… They could have just washed the blood off."

"Then what's the point of starting here?" Lorelei already shot down this line of thinking. "It could be any knife." She started to make fun of them. "Let's just worry about the actual cause of death, kay?"

Tatiana extended her arm out. "Exactly. I'm much more curious about what his movement was. His time of death was 1:32, so what would he have even been doing at that time?"

"Dying." Laki said with a smile.

"I… Well yes but." The knife thrower wasn't sure how to handle this.

"His body was discovered with rope burn around his neck, so clearly that was used in his murder." Gennosuke pointed out. "And we did find that rope on the ground."

"Also, the walls seemed to be going completely out of whack!" Laki called out.

"Right…" Dae-Hyun placed a hand through his hair. "My ultimate station worked by switching between five different rooms. To do so, the walls would flip to have different props."

Gemini nodded his head. "I got to check out the other side of it with Lorelei and Laki. So we can at least begin to explain how it worked a bit."

Lorelei seemed pretty happy that it was her time to shine already. "The system in the back was what was used to automate the controls. So when someone would switch the modes on the computer, the input would be transferred to the control system. This system was in charge of the lights, walls, floors, and props. Of interest, the control system used its own power. So it was completely cut off from the rest of the station."

Wanting a bit of clarification, Seira spoke up. "You said it was in charge of the props as well, right? Does that mean they took power from the same power supply?"

"Yup!" As easy as can be. "His entire station ran on the generator, so." Obviously so would the props. "Makes his station unique, I guess."

"Speaking of props…" Dae-Hyun mumbled out. "The reason I was able to hear the walls shifting was because the microphone was directly in the line of the path of the walls, which amplified the sound through the speakers."

"It almost appears to be deliberate." Lorelei pointed out. She was going to say some other things, but she was cut off.

"Well!" Laki decided to move the trial over to the part that interested her. "There was a taser stuck directly into the control system!"

Gemini nodded his head. "We believe that's what was making the entire room react the way it did." With the wall panels freaking out.

Gennosuke took out a lollipop. "Actually, I want to talk about those walls. On one of them, there was a piece of rope attached to it."

"Right!" Melody pulled out a magnifying glass, trying to mimic a detective. "I checked out that with the larger piece of rope, and these seemed to be one and the same." Tapping her foot as she danced around her podium a bit, she continued. "We even tried to tie it to the other end of the room, and it lined up perfectly with where that Alan fella was."

Gennosuke slowly nodded his head. "His neck was directly in the line of sight of the rope. More than likely what was used to choke him out."

Gemini hummed in thought. "If I had to guess, the rope was ripped off from the walls getting violent after a while."

"Speaking of which." Seira thought of something. "Where did that rope even come from?"

"Right." Sakura held her hands behind her back. "As far as I'm concerned, there's only one rope I've seen around here, and it belonged to Gemini."

"Hey that's me!"

Tilting her head to the side, the security guard continued. "And he still has his rope, so that's not what we found."

"Besides…" The escapist spoke up, pulling his rope out of the belt loops. "This rope isn't long enough." Quickly, he placed it back around him.

Atlas narrowed his eyes. "Then where the hell would the rope have come from? It's not like there's a room we haven't explored yet."

"Actually…" Winter hummed out, thinking. "There's one place I think the rope could have been…"

…

"The fifth room of the Ultimate Talent Manager Station."

"Right…" Michael mumbled out. "We never got to see what it looked like."

The love guru let out a small sigh. "I tried to see what the last room looked like, but Dae-Hyun didn't seem to like that."

"… Let's just say it was from there and move on."

"Now hold on a second…" Lorelei mumbled out, narrowing her eyes. "Didn't he remove the mouse the last time we were there? I faintly remember him leaving in a rage."

"Oh! Huh…" Melody glanced away. "Now that I think of it, he might have brought it to him last night, but I dragged him away to see the last game…"

"Yeah." The talent manager confirmed. "I brought it with me last night to check out my Ultimate Station. And then the game happened, and I wasn't able to collect it again."

The cyber security girl let out a small laugh. "So what you mean to say is that this is all your fault? Why is there even rope in your station?"

"... Moving on." It was clear he didn't want to talk about it.

Getting the hint, Seira decided to ask a better question. "Why were they attached to the wall in the first place?"

Dae-Hyun shrugged. "Beats me. They could have just strangled him like normal."

"Maybe that was the problem!" Edison adjusted his goggles. "Maybe they couldn't strangle him like normal."

Ian slowly nodded his head. "Trying to strangle someone could prove difficult if you are smaller than the target." He leaned forward on his podium. "Like this, you'd let the machinery do all the work."

"Then what?" Atlas was going to take this at face value. "We're supposed to assume it was someone who was smaller than the victim?"

That was… quite a few people.

"I'm smaller than the victim!" Laki pointed out. "But I wouldn't have needed to set up an elaborate murder like that!" Girl would have done it herself. With her bare hands if she had to.

That wasn't helping, so Gemini decided to ignore it. "It could very well have been the reason that the killer had to resort to it."

Lorelei shook her head. "But why even try to strangle someone to death if you aren't fit for it? Just use a knife or… something. Literally anything else." She didn't understand why one would need to be stupid for this.

"There might have been a reason that the killer had to resort to strangulation." Gigi pointed out. Not that she had any idea, she was just trying to get others to think.

"Could have been in an effort to hide their size." Ian suggested. "Strangulation would normally make us think of someone much stronger, right?"

"Yes, it would…" Hae-Won wasn't buying it in the slightest. "But there's something off about this entire strangulation."

"Oh?" The gambler frowned slightly. "And what would that be?"

The rope marks made sense for strangulation based on rope… but something else was off. "Actually, there are two things that don't quite add up about this strangulation."

"Really? How could two different things being off be possible?" Atlas wasn't believing this for one second.

The tattoo artist let out a sigh. "When you're being strangled, specifically by a rope, what exactly do you think you'd do to prevent it from happening."

"Well…" Seira trailed off. "I'd try to pull the rope away from my neck."

"Exactly. Someone being strangled would try and save themselves, even if they have to use a bit of force." Which meant this would make the next point much easier to explain. "However, normally evidence of such a thing would be left behind."

"Oh!" Melody, with her knowledge of murder mysteries, was here to reveal the answer. "Right, the evidence left behind would be…"

…

"Scratch marks!"

Gennosuke tilted his head to the side. "Yeah, there would be some, wouldn't there be."

Hae-Won nodded her head. "If a victim struggles, it would only be natural that they'd claw away at their own neck to try to save themselves."

"Really?" Laki tilted her head to the side. "But what about the setup? Would that have changed anything?"

The tattoo artist shook her head. "The setup hardly would have changed anything, no. Alan still would have clawed away at his own neck."

"Then it's a simple formula, isn't it?" Edison called out, coming up with an idea. Once all eyes were on him, he smiled earnestly. "Then it's easy? He must have been unconscious while it was happening."

"Yeah!" Dolly seemed to agree. "If he was unconscious, then that wouldn't have been a problem right? It would have made it so Alan wouldn't have fought back!"

"That could be true, but…" Hae-Won had more to say, but she was cut off by the chemist.

"Then let's figure out what made him unconscious in the first place!" That should be easy!

Gemini thought for a moment. "We never went over those puncture wounds on his stomach, nor the bruising on his neck. Those are two likely candidates." He didn't think the slash wound would have rendered him unconscious, and it wasn't the method of murder.

"Yeah, but…" Dae-Hyun ran his hand through his hair. "That could have been caused by anything. We wouldn't be able to narrow it down."

"Where exactly was it?" Laki tilted her head to the side.

Hae-Won felt like this was leading to a dead end, but she felt like she should at least answer it anyways. "The lower stomach, on the left side."

"Oh! Oh!" The lucky student seemed pretty excited about this.

Atlas shook his head. "Could you not be annoying, for five minutes? Jesus, we're in the middle of a trial!"

Listening to Atlas- Pfft. Good one. Ignoring him completely, Laki bounced around. "I know what caused that injury! It was…"

…

"Me."

Edison blinked a few times before pointing at her. "She's the killer! She admitted to it!"

"More specifically the taser. Remember how I was up against Alan last night? That's the exact spot I tased him."

That was a good explanation, except for one thing. "He had two sets of those puncture wounds."

"She tased him twice." Gemini revealed, thankful that he was even there in the first place.

Well, that solved that issue. "So then the puncture wounds wouldn't have been used in the murder at all, and them being included was irrelevant." Lorelei pointed out.

Monokawa shrugged, offering a sheepish smile. "I didn't see how that game turned out, so sue me."

"How much do you have?" Winter asked innocently.

"Five bucks and a half eaten bag of peanuts." He shrugged. "I don't get paid, remember?"

Seems they were still getting off topic again. Up to Gemini to save the day. "If the puncture wounds were irrelevant, then there isn't any reason to assume that Alan would have been unconscious, right?"

Hae-Won shook her head. "There weren't any evidence of blunt force trauma to knock someone else, and the Station Report didn't make any mention of it…" She trailed off, slowly turning her attention towards Monokawa. "If the report is to be believed."

"But he had to be unconscious." Edison pointed out. "There had to be some other injury."

The tattoo artist shook her head. "I think it's something else entirely. It's highly likely that he was still conscious while getting strangled."

"Huh?" But that didn't make any sense! The chemist wasn't going to believe it. "Then how do you suppose that they were able to stay conscious without leaving any evidence behind?"

Now, she wasn't too sure on how, given no matter what form of strangulation, there would have been some evidence left behind. "There's one more thing that doesn't make sense about Alan's strangulation."

"And what would that be?" Atlas narrowed his eyes.

It was pretty easy to figure out. "The rope marks weren't the only thing left over on the body. He also had bruises around his neck."

"And? What do you think caused those marks?" Dae-Hyun asked, crossing his arms.

She couldn't be certain, but there was one thing that seemed rather conclusive. "Bruising like that… it would only have appeared via…"

…

"Strangulation by hand."

"Huh?" Edison blinked a few times. "Strangulation by hand? But I thought we pointed out that the rope was what did it!"
Hae-Won couldn't be too mean to the guy, so she was going to use a nicer tone. "As mentioned before, the scratch marks would have been visible. And since he wouldn't have been able to be unconscious, it's likely that strangulation would have happened manually. Someone choked the life out of him with their own hands…"

Gigi crossed her arms, closing one eye. "I find it hard to believe. Strangulation like that should still leave behind scratch marks. The victim still would have struggled."

That was the one part she couldn't quite figure out. "It's odd, I know, but I believe he might have been strangled like that."

"Then…" Lorelei trailed off, a small smile forming on her face. "That means that it wouldn't have been someone weaker than him." She patted Michael on the back. "Isn't that great! You can't be the killer!"

"Y-yeah…" Why was she so close to him? He wished she would give him some space.

Gemini let out a sigh. "It doesn't seem we can prove with concrete evidence exactly which way he died." There not being any scratch marks in the first place did prove odd. Was there something they hadn't factored in? "So instead, maybe we should try and change the topic to something else?"

"A fair thing to switch over would be the time of death, no?" Gennosuke suggested.

"Yes." Sakura put her hands behind her back. "That would be a fair assessment. According to the file, he died at 1:32. Whether that's AM or PM remains to be seen."

"Well…" Dae-Hyun mumbled out. "I find it hard to believe anyone would be able to miss such a body. I was able to hear the noise just by walking in front of the door."

Lorelei slowly nodded her head. "And since the room itself runs on its own generator, it would have been unaffected by the power outage."

"If I recall…" Seira began to mumble out.

Lowering her arm, the astrologist nodded her head. "Right…" She trailed off. "Say…" She tried to listen a bit in the darkness, getting an uneasy feeling. "I've never realised it before, but the station is normally so loud."

"Guess once everything is deactivated, you tend to notice things." Sakura was having the same thought. "There's no noise right now…" Besides their voices and footsteps, no other sound could be heard.

It gave Seira a slight shiver at the thought. "Makes us feel… alone." The silence itself was haunting… At least Sakura was around to provide some company.

"The entire station was quiet. If the room was making any noise we would have heard it."

Sakura slowly nodded her head. "But we didn't hear anything while down there, so it's safe to assume that the body got there after."

Gennosuke raised an eyebrow. "But that leaves a small window, now does it?"

Lorelei placed a hand on her hip. "I wouldn't say so. The game ended at 10:45, so that left ample time for a murder to happen. Almost three hours is a lot of time."

Hae-Won slowly nodded her head. "Not just that, but just because the time of death was 1:32, doesn't mean that the killer didn't do anything to Alan before then."

Dae-Hyun slowly nodded his head. "My station was used in the murder, and it doesn't seem like it was a last minute addition either. It seems like it was planned to be used."

"So?" Lorelei rolled her eyes. "What does that have to do with anything?"

The talent manager ran a hand through his hair, parting it slightly so he could narrow his eyes at her. "It means there had to be some sort of setup. For the rope and whatnot."

Slowly nodding her head, Hae-Won continued her thought. "Which is why I suggest that the killer might have been setting up long before the murder occurred. At a time where everyone else would have likely been busy. More specifically…"

…

"During the games."

"That brings down the number of suspects considerably." Ian pointed out. "Who were the people who were late for the games?"

Gigi was a bit unsure about this entire line of thinking, but she knew the answer. "Everyone showed up for the first game, with the exception of Gennosuke, Edison, Lorelei, May, and Michael."

"You know!" Laki hummed out. "Isn't Edison always up early? Isn't it weird that he slept in?"

"Huh?" Edison took a step back, looking around nervously. "Hey! I have a pretty good explanation for that!"

The gambler had a small grin on his face. "Oh? And what would that be?"

They wouldn't be able to pin anything on him. "I wasn't awake because the alarm didn't go off."

"But everyone else woke up!" Laki countered.

Thankfully, Gigi came to his aid. "I can vouch for the alarm clock. It was tied to the power outage, so it wouldn't have gone off." In her hand, she was holding the paper that Nova had printed for her. However, upon looking at it further, she found something of interest. "Hmm…?"

Unfortunately the conversation wasn't going to wait for her to figure things out. "Besides!" Edison called out. "Wasn't Michael missing all day?"

The hooded figure glanced away. "I… I wasn't feeling well. The beating I got took me out."

The soccer player rolled his eyes. "This again? Come on! Get over yourself." But then an idea popped into his head. "You're just using that as an excuse, aren't you?"

"I…" He wasn't, but not like the others would believe him.

"Hey." Winter called out softly. "He isn't the only person who didn't show up for the initial round of games. What's to say that it wasn't one of them?"

"Huh… I didn't have a motive?" Lorelei pointed out. "We crushed the other team, so there wasn't any reason to kill." Which honestly only left Edison and May.

"Then what, you think they died from someone on our team?" Atlas narrowed his eyes.

"It seems pretty obvious that Alan died as a result of the motive." Tatiana pointed out. "So it must mean that someone from the Truth team must have done the deed."

Ian shrugged. "Easy enough assumption for me." He moved his hand around before pointing at someone. "So let's just say Dae-Hyun did it and call it a day."

He didn't take too kindly to the accusation. "I discovered the body, so I feel like I shouldn't even be a suspect in the first place."

"Nova." Gigi glanced away from the paper she was reading. "How exactly does a body discovery announcement work? Would a killer be part of that?"

She shook her head. "No. It would make no sense for a killer to discover a body they created, so they are excluded from the body discovery announcement criteria."

Ian let out a sigh. "You guys are no fun, I didn't actually think he did it."

"Really now?" The talent manager shook his head. "Last I checked, you almost got me killed today."

The gambler didn't really seem to care. "How was I supposed to know Monokawa wasn't going to turn down the suggestion? Besides, you forgot the part where my life was also put on the line as a result."

"Focus." Gemini called out. Because of the timer, he didn't want their time to be wasted on pointless arguments. "If he was killed a little over two hours after the game concluded, then we should try and figure out what everyone else was doing at that time."

"I think we should also be mindful of the conditions of the station." Winter pointed out. "Power was out in almost every area, was it not?"

Edison nodded his head. "Even after the games concluded, the lights were still off on the lower floor." He swirled the flask a bit. "The lights were functional on the top floor after the second game today concluded."

"I never actually went to the first floor after the games ended." Gennosuke began to speak. "What were the conditions of the doors?"

Dae-Hyun glanced away. "They were functional. I had to use my bracelet to get to the hallway before the lights turned on."

Melody nodded her head. "Right, the lights didn't come back on until he was gone. That's when I noticed the blood on the elevator."

"However, those aren't the only things we need to worry about." Hae-Won pointed out. "Even after the lights came back on on the top floor, many of the features were still offline."

"Right!" Tatiana called out. "For starters, our games had to be altered because the motive room wasn't fully functional."

Hearing all of this, Gigi finally spoke up. "So one of you just lied at the start of the trial, didn't you?" She had been considering the report she had received from Nova over. And she had finally found an inconsistency with the information someone else mentioned.

"Oh?" Winter tilted her head to the side. "And who would this liar be?"

"The liar is…"

…

"Lorelei."

All eyes turned towards the computer girl, who didn't seem bothered. "What? Do you have any proof that I'm a liar?"

As a matter of fact, she did. Still holding the report she received from Nova, she read it off.

Here's what functions would have been unusable during the power outage for every room:

Motive Room: The monitor in the back, and the buttons on the table.

Cafeteria: Food services, and the monitor in the back.

Cleaning Room: The glass door would not be usable.

Locker Room: The additional function of sending your storage would be unusable.

Kitchen: All appliances, including the trash chute.

Ultimate Talent Manager Station: Props requiring electricity would have been unusable.

"As stated here, the props from the Ultimate Talent Manager Station ran on the station's power, and not on the generator like you mentioned at the start of this trial."

This is where Lorelei came up with a counter argu- "Oops! You got me!" She didn't seem bothered. "Glad someone here wasn't a complete idiot."

"But why would you lie…?" The more Benoit heard her speak, the more he felt he couldn't trust them.

Placing a hand on their hip, Lorelei rolled her eyes. "Because I needed to see which of you losers were gullible, DUH!" A smile quickly formed on her face. "You all left the investigation up to me. And as you saw, I lied, plain as day."

"I fail to see how that helps anyone." Dae-Hyun shook his head.

"It helps me, and that's all that matters." They let out a small laugh. "But hey, you were saved in the end, so it doesn't matter." Looking at Dae-Hyun, she offered a mocking smile. "Cry me a river and drown in it." She stuck out her tongue.

Gigi had a lot more she wanted to say, but found it best to continue on with her point. "With this in mind, then the room could have been going off while the three of you went to collect some flashlights. Given that Dae-Hyun only heard it because the microphone amplified the sound."

"Then we might have passed by a body…?" Seira mumbled out.

Sakura shook her head. "That could be the case, but there's no way to confirm with accuracy the time."

Monokawa shrugged. "What are you talking about? The time is clear and concise. There should be no way you should be confused."

"What the hell do you mean?" Atlas wasn't stupid. It was clear that the time was confusing.
"Wait…" An idea soon formed in Seira's mind. "You mean that we should be able to tell what time it is just by looking at it?"

"Duh! If you aren't an idiot like Atlas, that is." The otter spun around in place.

Thinking about it some more, the picture was becoming clearer. "I think I know exactly what time it was." And if she was right, it would be the dumbest miscommunication ever. "Even without investigating, I think we can prove which of the two is the right time."

Sakura raised an eyebrow. "How are you able to do that?"

She was a bit uncertain, given that some of the other people hadn't reached the same conclusion as her, but she was going to try this idea anyway. "The time given on the station report was actually in…"

…

"Military time."

The room fell silent at the dumb revelation.

"What do you mean military time?" Atlas narrowed his eyes.

Edison adjusted his goggles. "Military time is-"

"I know what it means, dumb fuck! I mean why would it be like that?"

Seira would probably need to explain it herself. "It's the only way to explain why there's a discrepancy about the time of death." She played around with her bracelets, trying to figure out how to verbalise her next thought. "I think the most important question is… Who makes the Station Reports?"

Nova was free to answer that one. "Ah, I'm not well versed in stuff relating to corpses, so I have Monokawa scan the bodies. Which means he's also the one who writes the report."

It's just as she had thought. "That means that the Station Report and Rules were written by two different people." Nova was probably also the one who wrote the times for the games.

Lorelei rolled her eyes. "But what does that prove? We can't prove that the bastard uses military time based on that alone. Come up with something better next time."

"No… I think we can." She was confident she had seen it before. "During the games that Monokawa hosted that happened in the afternoon, do any of you remember what he said a few minutes before the games were about to start."

Edison hummed out in thought. "Let's see…" After pouring his mind into it a bit longer, a spark appeared in his memory. "Oh! He did say something akin to that."

That's when Melody stepped out of the room with the rest of her team. "We are ready to go."

"It's almost 15:55!" He pointed at his wrist, where a watch would be. "You know what happens when you don't show up."

She knew, but she felt it was hardly worth hassling over when she was here now. There were still two minutes for her to voice which game she wanted.

"You were almost late!" Monokawa pointed out, ticked off. "You people are playing with fire right now. "It's almost 18:30!"

"We weren't going to be late." The soccer player wouldn't miss this for anything.

"Both times he verbally described the time as so." Seira continued her explanation. "Meanwhile, Nova is the one responsible for the times the games would start at."

The overseer nodded her head. "Correct. I'm also the one who made the rules." Then, she let out a heavy sigh. "Honestly, if I knew this would have been an issue, I would have done the Station Report myself."

"Let me get this straight…" Atlas took a deep breath. "In the official report used for the autopsy… You didn't bother to specify which method of time you were using!?" He was glaring daggers at Monokawa.

The otter shrugged it off. "Military time is better. I thought you knew I preferred it."

Gigi seemed equally as annoyed. "I don't care which you prefer." She pointed her black glove at him. "You two need to reach consensus on how time is portrayed here. The times for the games were written with AM and PM in mind."

Nova let out a sigh. "I have to agree with her, Monokawa. This is completely on you."

He crossed his arms, clearly ticked off. "It's not just on me. Everyone else should have picked up on it sooner."

All that work… only to conclude he died after midnight.

"But wait." Dae-Hyun noticed something. "Isn't that strange?"

"Hmm?" Tatiana looked the other way. "What would be strange about it?"

Sticking his hands in his pockets, the talent manager shook his head. "We thought this entire time that Alan died because the truth team was going to die. But if he died before game nine, then what was the motive?"

Flicking a card between his fingers, Ian began to pay attention again. "Oh? What's stopping the motive from being the same. After all, going into the final day, the score was 5-3. You would have needed to win every game today to even win."

"That doesn't change the fact." The talent manager put his hands in his pockets. "Up to that point, there wasn't any reason for someone to die. Much less to point it at a specific team."

"Still, he died anyway." Sakura pointed out. "I think we should worry about what he was doing during that time."

Gemini slowly nodded his head. "I managed to map out every spot where we found some blood. This includes the shower, specifically on the girl side-"

"Perv…" Lorelei shook her head. "Why would he go there?"

Ignoring her, the escapist continued. "Then, there was some in the security room, Tau Sector, two spots in the cafeteria, and lastly, the kitchen." He paused for a moment. "All of these locations had the blood splotched onto the ground or wall… Except for the kitchen, which had a streak of blood."

Ah, it was the first time Hae-Won had heard of that. "Is that so?" A smile slowly formed on her face. "I've had a card in my pocket the entire time that I've been waiting to play. If we're talking about what Alan was doing, I think it's time to present it." As she said that, she removed the note from her pocket. "This was found on Alan while I was investigating him."

"There's going to be a confrontation at -. If you don't step in to stop it, someone will die as a result."

"Alan had this?" Dae-Hyun mumbled out. "Any idea who wrote it?"

Lorelei rolled her eyes. "As if you even had to guess! The killer used it to lure him in."

"Um…" Laki found that hard to believe. "I thought he'd ignore something like this. He was super paranoid!" A coward, if you will.

Atlas slowly nodded his head. "I'd be inclined to agree. Little bastard wouldn't let anyone help him."

"Haha!" Edison called out, getting everyone's attention. "He let me help." Back to being ignored.

"But what about the location…?" Gemini tried to get a better look, but he was a bit far. "It doesn't seem to specify anything."

Hae-Won let out a small sigh. "Yes, that's the problem. I think the killer marked it off."

"Why?" Lorelei narrowed her eyes. "If I were the killer I would have destroyed that note. Why leave evidence behind?"

That was a lot to think about, so Gemini got everyone back on track. "Before we worry about why the killer did that, we should worry about what possible location this could even mean."

"I think…" Seira looked at it a bit more. "I think I know what location it's for." She was a bit unsure… And yet, only one location came to mind. "The location on the note was directed towards…" Seira continued.

…

"The kitchen."
Dae-Hyun tilted his head to the side. "Oh yeah? And how do you figure that?"

She knew was going to have to explain herself, so she already had the next piece of her argument ready. "While there were multiple places that contained blood, like the cafeteria and showers. It was the only place that had a different blood pattern."

Edison nodded his head. "Right! It was a streak of blood instead of a splotch!"

Gennosuke nodded his head, a smile appearing on his face. "What, like from a slash wound?"

"Well…" She couldn't say for certain. "I would assume that it would be from a knife, given the location."

"Hmm…" Hae-Won leaned forward on her podium, contemplating this. "So the idea was that Alan received a note, and he went to the kitchen where he was ambushed." Thinking about it some more. "The scratched out part seems to match with that. It could only fit one word, so kitchen fits the bill."

"Yes, I believe so." Seira was glad someone saw her vision. "But Alan was able to make his escape."

"Wait!" Dolly called out, holding a mini notebook. "Was this before or after the blackout? I'm trying to form a timeline here."

That was a good question… Seira had to put a bit more thought into it. "Well…"

"Oh, trust me. I know the answer to this." Ian was leaning on his podium. "The answer is pretty obvious when you think about it."

The astrologist couldn't see what he meant, but decided to humour him anyway. "Do you wish to share what you mean?"
"With pleasure!" A cocky smile slowly formed on his face. "Alan went to the kitchen…"

…

"After the blackout."

"And how can you reason that?" Tatiana raised an eyebrow.

He felt like he shouldn't have to explain it, but here he goes anyway. "Alan was a cautious person, wasn't he?"

Sakura slowly nodded his head. "As the days went by, he began to trust people less and less."

"So if I were paranoid, and received a note like that…" He trailed off.

Dolly nodded her head. "I wouldn't show up!"

"True… but we also have to remember that this is Alan we are talking about. He'd be tempted to check things out anyways. But he wouldn't go without any precautions…"

"Are you implying he cut the power so that his attacker wouldn't see him at all?" Gigi crossed her arms. "But that just put him at a disadvantage too, didn't it?"

Ian shrugged. "Look, I can't fully know what he was thinking about. But that's what I think happened. He cut the power to make sure the person in the kitchen couldn't attack him if things went South."

"Oh please, don't get me started!" Lorelei called out, covering her mouth to refrain from laughing. "You really think that's the reason that he cut the power to the entire station?"

"Not the entire station." Nova corrected. "The important stuff was left running."

Ignoring her, the cyber security specialist continued. "Tell me you haven't explored everywhere without saying you haven't explored everywhere."

Crossing his arms, the gambler frowned. "Stop beating around the bush and just tell us what you mean."
"There was an entirely different reason Alan would want to cut the power." Lorelei grinned to herself. "And as if he'd care about some stupid fight in the kitchen. His real concern was…"

…

"Opening the locked door."

That caught Winter's interest. "You mean the one we found in the security room?"

"The one and only."

Michael thought for a moment. "But would the door have even opened to the power going out."

Sakura nodded her head. "I believe it would have. All other doors were unlocked except for the vacant room doors."

"Tell me about it…" Dae-Hyun shook his head. "If they hadn't opened, there'd be a very likely chance that Winter and I would be dead."

"O-oh…" She hadn't even begun to consider that as a fact.

"Hmm…" Ian hummed out. "That's a plausible theory, but there's no way to know it would do that. Or that it even did that."

Lorelei let out another annoying laugh. "He really didn't explore anywhere else, did he."

The gambler was slowly getting tired of this dumb game of cat and mouse. "Can you just tell me what you're thinking, please?"

"Not until you get on your knees and beg." She teased him.

Nope! Wasn't going to do any of that. "Got any other jokes up your sleeves?"

Sakura narrowed her eyes. "Please don't delay things more than it needs to be. Don't forget that we have a timer."

The gambler let out a small laugh. "Oh, would you look at that! How convenient."

The cyber girl mumbled a few things under her breath. "Fine! If you really want to know! I can prove that he opened the door. If you took a look at the door, you'd see…"

…

"The weird blood pattern on the floor."

Yeah, Ian hadn't examined that room, so he had no idea what the hell she was talking about. "Care to elaborate?"

Sakura let out a sigh, figuring it would be easier if she explained. "If you took a look at the second door inside the security room, you'd notice a splotch of blood at the door. The only problem is that it doesn't make sense to assume the door was closed while it happened." She crossed her arms, looking to the side. "There's no blood on the door itself, and yet the blood seems to go under the door."

The gambler slowly nodded his head. "Got it!" And now he was going to stay out of it.

The security guard continued. "Not to mention I saw him investigating that very door a few days ago…"

After he was done inspecting the fuse box, he moved on to looking at the door. He tried to scan his bracelet, but it didn't work.

Sakura could not let this go on for much longer. "What… Are you doing?"

He didn't even bother to look at her. He got down on his knees to inspect the bottom of the door. "I thought I told you. This room feels strange."

She got that, but that didn't excuse his behaviour. "But why are you acting like that?"

He got back on his feet, turning to look at the security guard. "I think that there's some great mystery on the other side of this door."

She was sceptical, but she was at least going to hear him out. "Any idea what it is?"

Alan quickly shook his head. "If I knew what it was, it wouldn't be a mystery. But the door is just taunting us. Almost like it wants us to find out." He hummed in thought, pacing around. After a few seconds, he pulled out a pencil and started scribbling some things down.

"I'm not sure if you should go messing with whatever is on the other side." She felt like it would only attract unwanted attention.

The conspiracy theorist adjusted his glasses, shaking his head. "I thought so too, but there's no rules against it. So there's nothing really stopping us from going through it." He moved over to examine the scanner. "It appears to be like any other scanner."

"Ultimately, his goal was to open that door." Sakura continued. "Anything else that happened was simply a byproduct of that."

"Did he even find anything beyond that door?" Atlas raised an eyebrow. "Because I don't remember finding anything else out of the ordinary…"

The security guard shook her head. "No, not that I know of." Which was a shame.

"But then…" Hae-Won mumbled out, narrowing her eyes. "What reason would he have had to go to the kitchen afterwards?

The room fell silent as this conundrum slowly reared its head.

The first person to break the silence was Gemini. "As of now, we don't know why he cut the power and then ran to the kitchen…."

"Then, wouldn't it make sense that the power went off after the kitchen incident?" Benoit pointed out.

"Ah." Gennosuke grinned. "I'm starting to understand. The reason the power went out was completely different than what you assumed. Nor did it happen before he went to the kitchen."

Both Lorelei and Ian didn't take kindly to that. "No, I'm sure it was to open the locked door." The former said.

Ian, however, only leaned on his podium a bit. "Then enlighten us to the real reason that Alan would have turned off the power to the station."

"Easy…" The psychic was going to make quick work of this. "Alan turned off the power so he…"

…

"Could lose his attacker."

"Oh! That makes sense." Laki tilted her head to the side. "He was very good at running away."

Ian let out a small laugh. "He sure is. We wouldn't have won Zappy Zap had I not called the elevator up during the chase."

Gemini raised an eyebrow. "That was you?"

The gambler shrugged. "I couldn't just let Laki lose her game."

"With a blackout, he could have escaped his attacker." Gennosuke continued. "A shame he wasn't able to do that."

"Yeah, given that his attacker still killed him." Sakura narrowed her eyes. "But what did he even use anyways? If he had the chance to cut off the power and open that locked door much sooner, he would have done it by now."

Edison adjusted his goggles. "You're right. Instead, he relied on us trying to blow stuff up. But to think he had a trick up his sleeves the entire time…"

"Oh!" Laki raised up her hand. "I know what he used! I actually found it while investigating! He used…"

…

"A taser."

"The one from Zappy Zap?" Tatiana asked. "Well, that makes sense, then. It wouldn't have been usable until after the game."

Gemini slowly nodded his head. "In fact, I think he took it as soon as the game ended…"

After a few seconds, Nova slowly descended from the upper portion of the cafeteria. "That would be a win for the ideals team." She knew the outcome, but she was still impressed by how many points they had gathered over the other team. "Congrats on your-"

ZAP!

One last shock into Alan for good measure!

"O-ow! She's crazy!" He tried to kick her away, but missed by a mile.

Letting out a sigh, Nova extended her arm out. "Return it at once."

Now, Laki wasn't one to follow rules. To the point where she was even tempted to see how Nova would react to it.

However, given that was a poor decision, she should consider herself lucky that Gemini managed to pry it out of her hands. "That's enough of that. We're already winning. No need to cripple the opponent."

"I can't feel my left side…" Alan mumbled out.

"You'll be fine." The escapist handed over the taser to Nova.

Alan slowly got up onto his feet, putting his hands in his pockets.

"Nova, you never took the taser away from Alan, didn't you?" Gemini placed his hands on his hips.

She didn't really seem too concerned about it. "No, I guess I didn't. Although, Lakshmi was a far greater concern at the time."

"Then that settles that. Alan had the taser with him the entire time." Gemini continued. "Which meant that at any time after the eighth game, he could have used it to cut power to the entire facility."

Dolly had written all of that in her tiny notebook. "After such a shocking reveal, where do we proceed now?"

Shitty puns aside, it was time to move back onto the trial. "I think a good place to continue would be to figure out what happened in the kitchen, given that's what the note was addressed to."

Dae-Hyun had no problem controlling the conversation here. "So then, with Alan arriving in the kitchen. The killer grabbed one of the knives in the rack and attempted to cut him down." That would explain the weird streak of blood they found.

"It makes the most logical sense, yes." Gigi tilted her head slightly. "It's probably why the killer chose the kitchen as a location specifically."

"Science doesn't support it!" Edison called out, gripping his flask.

"Hmm?" The talent manager only seemed mildly annoyed. "What do you want?"

A smile appeared on his face. "You heard me. Theoretically speaking, you're wrong."

He highly doubted it, but might as well humour the kid. "Wrong in what way?"

Well he could just repeat himself and go into an endless loop, Edison wasn't that cruel. Lifting up his flask, he inspected it closely. "That's because I inspected the kitchen myself. And none of the knives had any traces of blood on them."

"I…" That was his entire argument here? "What are you trying to prove exactly?" He thought he might actually be at a slight disadvantage given how smart Edison seemed to be, but even he could be dumb at times like these. "All they would have needed to do was wash the blood off the knives."

"Is that all?" Despite his argument being blown wide open, the chemist didn't seem to mind. "Water wouldn't get rid of every trace." Putting the flask down on his podium, he reached over for one of his vials. Popping the cap off, he took a nozzle out of his pocket, twisting it on. Now it was a glorified spray bottle. "Because with this, any blood wouldn't be able to hide from me!"

"... And that is?" Dae-Hyun raised an eyebrow. "Look, we don't have time for your games right now."

"Do none of you know what this is?" He thought it was obvious!

"All I know is that you sprayed that on the knives." Seira called out. "But… you never told me what it was."

Well he wasn't going to tell Seira, that was obvious! "It's luminol!" Silence. "... None of you know what that is?"

"Why the hell would we know what that is?" Atlas narrowed his eyes. "Stop beating around the bush and just tell us."

Disappointing! "It's used to detect blood, even long after it's been washed out."

"Oh!" Seira was beginning to understand. "Is that why you reacted that way…?"

"What are you doing?" Seira approached him. The knives were also clean. "If there was any blood on them, don't you think the killer would have washed them off.

At this point, he had completely tuned her out. He reached over for one of his vials, before finding the correct one. Out of nowhere, he pulled out a spray nozzle. Quickly, he screwed it onto the vial. "Watch and be amazed!" He sprayed each knife individually.

And… after a few seconds…

Nothing.

Seira was still waiting for something to happen. When it became clear that this led to nothing, she looked over at the chemist. "Was… something supposed to happen?"

Slowly, he turned to look at her. "Of course, someone with a fake science like that wouldn't know what I'm doing." He adjusted his goggles.

"F-fake talent?" She didn't take too kindly to that. "All I see is that you didn't do anything! What does that prove?"

"Yes!" Glad she was picking up on it now. "I checked the knives with the mixture, and none of them reacted. Which means none of them could have been used to cut Alan."

"Absolutely no traces of blood?" Hae-Won was a bit surprised, but then… "What cut him, if not for the knives?"

"Well!" Laki jumped in. "It was only those knives that were clean, right?"

"What are you getting at?" Sakura narrowed her eyes. "What other knives would there even be?"

"Well! There are some knives we are forgetting about…!"

…

"Tatiana's knives!"

"Urk- My knives?" She was a bit taken aback by the accusation. "Are you saying I would use my own knives in a murder? That seems unreasonable and would get me caught right away. Who in their right mind would do that?"

"You!" Dolly called out.

The entertainer quickly shook her head. "Nonsense! For I would never do such a thing!"

Gennosuke tilted his head to the side. "And what proof do you have of that? Are we just supposed to take your word for it?"

"I see no problem with that." Tatiana shrugged. "What reason would I even have to kill him?"

"True. There would have been no motive on Tatiana's part." Winter pointed out, but her smile grew a bit more mischievous. "But what about Alan? Wouldn't he have had a motive?"

"Would he?" Gemini raised an eyebrow. "If it happened last night, then there was still hope for the truth team to win."

"No there wasn't." Ian shook his head.

Well, Winter didn't believe Alan had a motive, she was only hoping someone else would carry her line of thinking just a bit further. "Well, no way to know now. However he did receive the note that told him to go to the kitchen."

"But it doesn't mean I was the one who was there! Or even sent out the note!" Tatiana tried to defend herself. "You don't even have any proof that I was there that night."

That one statement did not sit well with Gigi. "What are you talking about?" She pointed at her with her black glove. "You were on the first floor last night."

Twirling around a knife, she shook her head. "I wasn't. You have no way to prove I was."

Was that so? Well, guess she would have to point out the very obvious. "Two people were in the elevator when everyone woke up. Youand May."

"W-well…" She glanced away, however her stutter didn't last for too long. "And just like that, you wish to accuse me? As you just suggested, there was another person there!" She pointed over to the sleeping May. "She could just as well be the killer!"

Aforementioned person did not respond, on account of them sleeping their days away.

Winter let out a giggle. "Good try there, but I doubt May of all people did anything."

"Still, that doesn't prove anything!" Tatiana crossed her arms, a confident smile on her face. "You have no way to prove I wasn't trapped on the elevator from going down right before the power went out!"

That was true… Gigi couldn't exactly prove that. And given that she had no other points to prove, she remained silent.

"Now wait a second." Atlas called out. "That thingy that Edison has, couldn't it work here?"

"Oh!" Edison pulled out the luminol. "Yes, it would! Tatiana, hand over your knife! Hypothetically speaking, if she were the killer, it would radiate a light."

"Very well!" She twirled the knife. "Take it, and handle it well!" Except she didn't hand it over like one normally would.

Instead, as the knife left her hand, it lodged itself right into the podium that Edison was standing behind. He let out a small scream before falling down.

"Pfft!" Lorelei covered her mouth. "Ohmygod! What a loser. As if you were afraid of that!"

He quickly reached over, pulling the knife out. "Then I'll just throw it at you!"

She narrowed her eyes. "No! What the hell? You'll actually hit me."

Still, it was important to get the main matter at hand here. He sprayed the blade a few times, hoping to have covered every inch. Once that was done, he examined it through his goggles. "Hmm…" He seemed disappointed. "It's blank."

Shifting his eyes between everyone in the room, Ian let out a loud sigh as they landed on the knife thrower next to him. "Tatiana. How many knives do you have?"

"One, please give it back!" She extended her arm out.

The gambler wasn't buying it. "I know you have more than one. Hand it over."

Mumbling something under her breath, she procured two extra knives, which all found themselves lodged in Edison's podium moments later.

"Blank too…" He was really hoping for something here.

Alright, clearly that wasn't working. "Do you not know the definition of all?" Ian took a step towards Tatiana.

She responded by taking a step back, and glancing at Atlas, who was next to her. "What are you doing? Stop him."

The soccer player didn't feel bothered to. "Just give him your knives already!"

"Alright! Alright!" Seems like she had no choice. Letting out a sigh, she started discarding a bunch of knives. One knife, two knives, red knife, blue knife-

Each fell to the ground with a clatter. Just when one would think that was all, another knife would hit the ground, only growing further concerns in the room.

Eventually… The last one hit the ground. "There! Be amazed!" It's like she was a magician now.

"I'll bring them." Hae-Won moved over to grab them. She had a few questions on her mind, but the most pressing one was if Tatiana was the killer or not. This would prove either or. "Here you go." She stood by Edison, holding them out.

"On it!" One by one, he sprayed the knives. He had no reaction for a while, until after spraying one of the knives, he took a step back. "You see that!"

To everyone else, it looked like he was losing his mind about nothing.

"Are we… Supposed to see something?" Even Benoit, who was right beside him, saw nothing.

Right! The most important part! "Can someone turn off the lights!"

"Monokawa, please turn off the lights." Nova ordered him.

Quickly turning to the overseer, a bit of anger was apparent in his voice. "What? Why me?"

The way she was sitting would suggest she was quite comfortable. "Because you'd be faster."

Mumbling several different obscenities under his breath, the otter moved to turn off the lights, leaving them alone with the faint light from distant stars.

"Woah…" Laki hummed out as she saw the knife glow with a faint blue light. "That's cool!" There was a pause. "It's a shame you used the one cool moment in your life for this."

"H-hey! I'm plenty cool!" He lied.

When the lights finally turned back on, everyone was eyeing a rather nervous looking Tatiana. "Wow… How did that get there?" She let out a laugh.

"All the denying…" Lorelei shook her head. "And yet the answer was so easily revealed."

Gripping onto her podium, Tatiana's voice boomed a bit louder. "Oh yeah? Well can you prove that it was Alan's blood that was on there? That could be my own blood from cutting myself when I was younger." She pointed to her eye. "Maybe from this, even."

"What the hell?" Atlas narrowed his eyes. "How are we supposed to prove if it's his blood or not? We aren't crime investigators!"

"True…" Edison tapped his chin. "We aren't. But we can roughly estimate how old the blood is from the luminol."

The confidence she had in her voice quickly faded away to obscurity. "You can do what now?" If that was true-

Adjusting his goggles, he nodded his head. "Based solely on the intensity of the luminol, we can determine if it's recent or not!"

"We can turn off the lights again to check." Seira suggested. In truth, she just wanted a view of the sky outside to see the stars. Not that she would tell anyone.

Monokawa stopped Nova from speaking. "Nope! Not going over there!" He curled up into a ball. "I'm going for a nap. I've already been yelled at enough today."

The chemist shook his head, hoping his own words would be enough. "Because the light emitted is very faint, we can conclude that the blood is recent. Older blood would produce a much bigger reaction."

Gennosuke tilted his head to the side, before his eyes landed on Tatiana. "What say you? Sounds pretty damning."

"W-well!" Despite that, she still kept her confident aura. "That's all conjecture, is it not? You aren't able to judge for yourself, and you are only using information provided to you by Edison. What is to say he isn't lying?"

"Still…" Gigi trailed off. "The fact that you are even trying to hide that there was blood on your knife is suspicious. And you only just now stated you got blood on it from your eye. Doesn't seem true in the slightest."

Gemini let out a sigh. "Besides, you told me something different yesterday…"

That couldn't be it at all. Tatiana crossed her arms, frowning slightly. "Nonsense. I would have heard it. Ever since I lost my eye, my other senses have been raised."

For a while, he wasn't sure if she actually lost an eye or not. "Speaking of which, what happened with that?"

"Oh? It's caught your interest, hasn't it? Well, I'll allow you to take one guess on how it may have ended up like this?"

He didn't have to think very hard. "A knife!"

"Well yes, but—" Shocking that the knife thrower had an incident with the knife.

Feeling proud of himself, Gemini nodded his head. "Was it your own knife?"

"As if. I'm not that foolish to have my own blade cut my eye. The fault lies on someone else."

Oh right! She had told him that. "W-well I could have simply been lying, right?"

"Like you are now?" Ian grew a grin on his face.

"Not to mention that you were one of two people on the elevator!" Laki pointed out. "Looks like the suspect list is pretty short."

Sakura gripped onto her own podium. "Just tell us the truth, and nothing bad will happen."

"But I… But I…" She glanced towards the ground, trying to think of what to say. "But I didn't kill him!"

"Oh, but you stabbed him?" Atlas narrowed his eyes.

"Wasn't it a slash wound?" Edison corrected.

The soccer player glared at the nerd. "Shut it! All evidence points to Tatiana attacking Alan."

"Hey!" The knife thrower called out. "Let's not put it like that!"

"Tatiana…" Gemini let out a sigh. "Just tell us what happened. If you aren't the killer, isn't in your best interest."

"I…" She didn't want anybody to find out what had happened. However, it seemed like she couldn't avoid it anymore. "I… I… I attacked Alan last night."

The entire room slowly grew silent as the confession registered for everyone.

"But." The escapist was the first one to speak. "You didn't kill him, right?"

Quickly, she shook her head. "No! I just slashed at him with my knife!"

"Huh?" Edison glanced at his flask. "That was it? That can't be it!"

"I didn't want to. He was coming to attack me." She quickly tried to defend herself. "I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do, so I attacked him before he could make a move on me!"

That did throw things through a loop if she was telling the truth. "He attacked you?" Hae-Won repeated. "And what basis do we have to believe you on that?"

"Come on… You think I could have strangled him?" The knife thrower glanced away. "I would have stuck to my knives if I needed to."

"You're telling me you didn't chase him to the security room?" Atlas narrowed his eyes, taking a step towards her. "Bullshit!"

"H-hey! That's confusing to me!" She took a step back. "When he showed up, the power was already off."

Gennosuke's normal smile slowly wiped off his face. "What, so he wasn't doing that to get rid of you?"

Quickly, she shook her head. "No. I didn't even know who was walking over to me. I just swung with reckless abandon."

A gasp came from Monokawa. "You need to be more careful! What if it was Nova or I? Then you'd be dead! That would be a sad way to go…"

The knife thrower closed her one eye. "I… I panicked, alrighty? I get very jumpy!"

"I witnessed it this morning." Gigi admitted. "She can be a bit quick on the draw."

Tatiana let out a small laugh. "I'm sure there will be a way!" As she stepped further into the room, she had this ominous feeling wash over her. Slowly, she turned to look at the source, and quickly reached for her knife towards the illuminated face staring at her.

"That wouldn't be a good idea!" The face belonged to Nova, who glowed in the dark. "Remember the rules."

The knife had stopped a few inches away from her neck, but Tatiana played it off. "Haha! I knew that. I was just trying to scare you!" She quickly put the weapon away.

"See! People approaching me in the darkness are just asking for trouble!"

Ian let out a sad sigh. "Still… We can't just assume you're not the killer. You could just be telling us this so we don't suspect you anymore."

"Huh?" Was he really still going after her? "What more do you want from me? I already told you most of what I knew!"

"He raises a fair point…" Dae-Hyun mumbled. "Until we can prove without a doubt that you are innocent, we can't let you off the hook."

"But… But I'm not…" She was already attacked early in the morning, and now, they were attacking her here. "What could I possibly do to prove my innocence?"

Thinking for a moment, Gigi came up with a solution. "There's one way I know how, and it involves the rules." As Nova had said earlier. "She's innocent if she was part of…"

…

"The body discovery announcement."

"What would that really prove?" Sakura crossed her arms.

The referee held onto her whistle. "The rules say that a body discovery announcement will go off after three or more people discover a body. However… According to information gathered. It only went off after two people found the body."

Dae-Hyun slowly nodded his head. "It went off after Melody and myself saw it…"

The tap dancer glanced to the side, shaking slightly. "I never want to see something like that again…"

"And…" Gigi trailed off. "If you remember what Nova said during the trial…"

"Nova." Gigi glanced away from the paper she was reading. "How exactly does a body discovery announcement work? Would a killer be part of that?"

She shook her head. "No. It would make no sense for a killer to discover a body they created, so they are excluded from the body discovery announcement criteria."

"It would mean that if Tatiana was the first person to discover the body, she'd be proven innocent right on the spot." It's the only way she knew how to quickly prove her innocence.

"Well?" Gennosuke looked over at the knife thrower. "Did you walk in on the body?"

"I…" The temptation to lie to save herself was strong… But she couldn't do that. "No… I didn't see Alan's body at all. After I slashed him, I stayed in the kitchen for a while." She twirled one of the knives she had gotten back, maybe to calm her nerves down. "After enough time had passed, I tried to use the elevator. But the power outage prevented me from doing so. So I stayed inside the kitchen until the doors closed again."

"That would be when we encountered you arriving on the second floor." Gigi crossed her arms. "What about May?"

"She was already in the elevator when I got there. I believe she was truly trapped on the elevator after the power went out."

"Great! She couldn't have done it!" Atlas said somewhat sarcastically. "Not that she was on the suspect list to begin with."

That left the group with almost no other leads at the moment. "You didn't bother to look around?" Sakura held her arms behind her back.

"Why would I? I was almost killed, so I was trying to make sure I stayed safe. I already can't see that well, darkness just makes it worse. Although, I'm better off than most, given I can rely on sound instead."

"Well!" Dolly called out. "Did you hear anything?"

"Huh…" Tatiana had to think back a bit. "After I was attacked, and Alan left, I only heard two sets of footprints outside. I didn't check the time, however…"

Not much information to go by. "Well!" Ian called out, rather happily. "I think I'm ready to vote." He glanced over at the timer. "And see, we still had a little over an hour left before we had to vote."

"Hold on." Hae-Won hadn't been convinced yet. From the sounds of it, Tatiana didn't sound guilty.

However, before she was able to voice anything, Gennosuke spoke up. "She's innocent. Trust me." He flashed a smile.

"There's not going to be a single day on this station where I'd trust you." Dae-Hyun shook his head. "On what basis should we trust your word here?"

Ah, he was being doubted again. That was fine. "You don't have to trust me, but remember, all of our lives are on the line here. Well…" He trailed off. "Except for one." He had a person in mind. "So let's not try and throw away our lives here."

"Maybe we should figure out if there's any other avenue that we could go down." Sakura suggested. "Surely there has to be something we missed."

"Well." Gigi spoke up. "If Tatiana wasn't the first person to discover the body, there might be someone else who did it first. It would be a great help if that person would reveal themselves now."

However… Nobody stepped up to answer, only leaving the group with more questions.

"Hmm…" Ian hummed out, raising an eyebrow. "You'd think whoever it was would take the clear. They wouldn't be the blackened, so."

"There's a chance that the individual doesn't know they were the first to discover the body." Winter pointed out. "The station was dark, so maybe somebody saw the body without even realising it."

Seira shook her head. "No, that wouldn't be likely. When our group went down to get flashlights, all the doors were closed. Unless someone willingly opened the door, they wouldn't have been able to see it. Unless they passed by before the power to the doors was fixed."

"But I didn't go in that direction, so…" Tatiana mumbled out.
Soon, all eyes fell on the only other possibility. May.

However, the knife thrower was quick to jump to her defense. "I told you already, she was already on the elevator when I got there. It couldn't have been her!"

Then… It seemed they had exhausted all the main routes, and that only left Tatiana as the potential killer.

Until… A single voice spoke up.

"Um…" Benoit called out, trying to get his voice heard. "There's been… something I wanted to talk about for a while."

"Then why did you wait till now to say anything?" Atlas raised an eyebrow.

Quickly, he looked away. "Because you all seemed to be doing your best… So… I didn't want to get in the way."

But now it seemed like a good idea to reveal something he knew. "It's… it's about the cause of Alan's death."

Hae-Won raised an eyebrow at that. "Right… You did say you thought of something, didn't you?"

"Um…" Eyeing the blood a bit longer, Benoit's mind began to wander. "Are you good with finishing this up…? I want to go check out something else."

She didn't have an issue with that. "Go ahead." She figured that he didn't want to be next to the body anymore.

He held his hands together, looking around nervously. "Yes… I noticed something that I found odd… So I did some investigating of my own…" Now that all eyes were on him, he found it hard to cough up his thoughts. "And… Well…" Why was this so difficult?

Atlas kicked his podium, trying to rush him. "Hurry up already! We don't have all day, you know!"

He knew that! But it didn't make it any easier! "Huh…"

Hae-Won let out a sigh. "You guys can stop staring at him. He isn't going to tell us shit if you apply too much pressure on him."

There was Hae-Won again, coming to save him. "What I found is… That I think Alan might have been…" Ah, this was hard to reveal.

…

"He might have been poisoned."

Quickly, the room fell silent as the timer slowly ticked away, leaving them with exactly an hour left to solve this case.

And that concludes the first trial part! It's the first time I had to write a trial this long that wasn't just a chapter 6 trial, so maybe you felt like things might have been dragged out just a tad, or maybe the pacing was just a bit wonky. Either way, it's been such a long time since I had to write any trial. But I hope the evidence made sense, and the progression was natural!

Also hey! It's interesting that when I started writing this, a lot of evidence didn't exist at the time. However, I decided to add a bunch of stuff to help pad out the run time of this trial, so good for me! :D Normally I would always write trials and have it so major evidence was always used correctly. But reading Gold's fic, I found out it's just as fun when they use evidence in completely the wrong way, and derail the entire trial for a bit. I'll have to start doing that more often!

Anyways! What a twist! Nobody had correctly predicted that Alan would have been poisoned. So I'm semi happy about myself being able to hide that fact. But then, that raises the question… How much does that change for this trial? And does that change any predictions for the killer?

Speaking of which! The killer will be revealed in the next chapter, so I'm hoping you are all looking forward to it! Till then, keep making predictions. The next part should be out in only two days. So you'll reach the thrilling conclusion soon.

Participants Remaining: 19

Edison Thompton - The Ultimate Chemist [SilverMark16]

Benoit Chevalier - The Ultimate Physiotherapist [Epifanio Therion]

Seira Natsume - The Ultimate Astrologist [WolfieRed23]

Winter Hibiscus - The Ultimate Love Guru [Grandma Sue]

Giustina "Gigi" Giulio - The Ultimate Referee [Nekoja]

Gemini Strela - The Ultimate Escapist [secretnobody]

Benjamin Mason - The Ultimate Ventriloquist [NSPunny]

Lorelei Kaiser - The Ultimate Computer Security Specialist [CandleFire45]

Michael ? - The Ultimate ? [Omakin]

Melody Eleanor Hopkins - The Ultimate Tap Dancer [Prince PokePersona]

Kim Dae-Hyun - The Ultimate Talent Manager [oddlyillregular]

Lakshmi "Laki" Krishna - The Ultimate Lucky Student [Sempi]

May Summers - The Ultimate Academic Prodigy [KadachiNova]

Ian Santiago - The Ultimate Gambler [Animeboy15]

Tatiana Novak - The Ultimate Knife Thrower [ExtraMeme]

Atlas Constande - The Ultimate Soccer Player [ComplicatedYetSimple]

Gennosuke Yagami - The Ultimate Psychic [theotakureader101]

Kim Hae-Won - The Ultimate Tattoo Artist [Weekaro]

Sakura Gambino - The Ultimate Security Guard [PROJECT DRAMA]