Chapter 1: Early Graduation or Early Grave? Part 6 (Deadly Life)

Remaining Students: 17(?)

Yūgo Hachiken (Silver Spoon): Ultimate Tutor

Reyn (Xenoblade Chronicles): Ultimate Tank

Pietro Maximoff "Quicksilver" (Marvel Cinematic Universe): Ultimate Speedster

Miles "Tails" Prower (Sonic The Hedgehog): Ultimate Pilot

Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd (Fire Emblem: Three Houses): Ultimate Prince

Satou Kazuma (Konosuba) Ultimate Thief

Bede (Pokémon): Ultimate Gym Leader

Ray (The Promised Neverland): Ultimate Strategist

Finn (Star Wars): Ultimate Rebel

Sayori (Doki Doki Literature Club): Ultimate Poet

Konata Izumi (Lucky Star): Ultimate Otaku

Saki Nikaido (Zombie Land Saga): Ultimate Biker Gang Leader

Tsuyu Asui (My Hero Academia) Ultimate Amphibian

Kokomi Teruhashi (The Disastrous Life of Saiki K): Ultimate Beauty

Minori Ichinose(Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure): Ultimate Bookworm

Sora Takenouchi (Digimon Adventure Original): Ultimate Love

Kale (Dragon Ball Super): Ultimate ?

Sakaki (Azumanga Daioh): Ultimate Animal Lover

Hachiken's POV

"HRGH!"

I could feel my dinner rising from the bottom of my stomach as I leaned over the nearest garbage bin. After what we just saw, I'm surprised everyone else isn't throwing up either.

Who even is that?

The more I looked at that body, all dark and withered, the more it made me want to cry. All I could tell was that it was a girl, either Sakaki or Sora.

"Ugh, horrible…" Bede grimaced as he stared at the corpse.

"No no no no, it can't be…" Sayori trembled as she tried to avert her sky blue eyes.

Dimitri marched towards the front of the body, his face filled with rage.

"Who is responsible for this?! Step forward and admit your guilt, you lowly beast!" He yells with a voice that echoes throughout the gym.

Unfortunately, no one is giving themselves up.

I wiped the vomit that managed to drip down my mouth with my sleeve. Disgusting, I know, but not as bad as murdering someone.

Reyn sighed heavily and his head hung low, "Now what do we do?".

"Isn't it obvious?", Saki gritted her teeth with anger, "We find the murderer and kick their ass!"

"Well she has the right attitude, but you need to approach this situation with less anger and more thought." Bede rolled his eyes at her.

"Of course I'd be mad, you pompous ass! A friend of ours just got burnt to a crisp!" Saki tells him.

Bede scoffed, "First of all, I'm no friend to them and to you. Secondly, even if I (somehow) was, we have to focus on another important factor; the class trial."

Right, we need to find evidence and discuss amongst ourselves on who the killer could be. Monokuma mentioned that when we first got here. If we don't find out who really killed whoever this is….

We all get executed.

"As much as it pains me to admit it, he's right. If we don't investigate thoroughly and find the true culprit, we all die." Ray reluctantly agreed.

"Aw man, I can't be much help here! This is all egghead stuff!" Reyn groaned.

"We all can help in other ways, even if not all of us are investigating. I'm going off to check on Teruhashi, since she was in the gym with Sakaki and Sora she might know what caused the fire." Tsuyu hops off to the infirmary.

Teruhashi was out cold due to the smoke, so it might be a bit until she wakes up. I do hope she has something for us to make things easier.

"I… I want to be helpful right now too, but…" Sayori looked at the body once more and fell to her knees.

"There will be time to mourn later, we're on a time limit so you all better be helping in some way. Our lives are all on the line." Bede told her as he began to look around the gym for evidence.

Dimitri, still shaken up from his outburst earlier, takes a deep breath, "We have one task, find whatever information you can and bring them to light in the class trial. Leave no stone unturned, for our sake…", he turns his head to the corpse,"... and for the sake of the dead."

"Yes sir!" A handful of us replied.

I REALLY don't want to do this. I'm way out of my element here, but in a place like this it doesn't matter. Find the blackened or be killed, only one choice here that makes sense.

Here we go…

Investigation

"Long time, no see!"

"WAGH!" I jumped out of fear when Monokuma showed up from out of nowhere.

"WAGH! To you too! I'm here to give you all a special delivery before you begin investigating!" He gleefully says.

"That took a few years off my life…" Minori stated, spooked at Monokuma's appearance as well.

"Just ask someone else for their years if you want them back! I'm sure someone would be willing to give them up if they had to spend the rest of their lives in college!" Monokuma jokes.

"We have no time for this, what are you here to give us?" Ray thankfully gets us back on track.

"This of course! It's the Monokuma File Issue #1! And just for you a special variant cover to go along with it!" The robot bear cheers as we take out our e-Handbooks and receive the file.

That "variant cover" of his had Monokuma laying down in front of a fireplace, unsurprisingly insensitive (and disgusting as well) based on our current case. The victim's name was unlisted, making it up to us to figure out who was killed. Fun.

Victim: ?

"The time of death was around 11:00 pm. Victim died from shock after suffering sixth degree burns all over. The body is located in the center of the Gym 001 in the Recreation Center."

I had to keep myself from throwing up again after reading that, how do murder investigators do this?

Anyways, 11:00 pm? That was forty minutes ago. It took a while before the smoke managed to reach us to the point where we could smell it and for us to make it to the Recreation Center, so the victim really spent all that time burning…

Ugh, I need to focus here! Sixth degree burns, 11:00 pm, center of the gym, time to move on.

"Monokuma File #1" has been added to the Truth Bullet section of your handbook.

I'm gonna avoid looking at the body for now, for my sake, so I'll see if there's anything around the gym that I could find. Well, anything that wasn't burned to a crisp anyway.

I spotted Sayori in the corner, and I could hear her sobbing as well. I don't blame her one bit for reacting like this, especially since we know about how emotionally vulnerable she is.

"Sayori?" I tap her on the shoulder lightly.

"Hey Hachiken…" She sniffs as she turns to face me, her face filled with tears.

I decided not to be too rough on her with what I'm about to ask, "You were one of the last people close to this place before it went up in flames, is there anything you know that could help?"

Sayori wipes her eyes with her sleeve before answering, "All I know is that my group needed more help to transfer the propane tanks, so they told me to carry only one back so the generator could work. We went our separate ways afterwards and that's all I know, sorry…"

"Don't apologize Sayori, that gives you a good alibi in case you're suspected. I'm definitely sure that you didn't do it though, so no worries."

"Sayori's Account" has been added to the Truth Bullet section of your handbook.

Sayori gives me a pained smile, "Thanks, I appreciate that… I did notice something else though, right over there by the bleachers."

She points over to a tipped-over utility cart and we both walk towards it. This must be what they were planning on using to transport the propane tanks! It looks sturdy enough to carry a person on it, but…

"It doesn't have much traction. The wheels are very slippery, no wonder it's been knocked over." I shook my head.

It has to be tied to this case in some way, can't just ignore it.

"Utility Cart" has been added to the Truth Bullet section of your handbook.

"Sayori, do you want to keep investigating with me? Or do you need more time to rest?" I ask her.

She hesitates for a moment, "I, um…. Okay. I don't want to be useless when one of our friends just got killed, and the other is missing. We need to do something about it!"

Sayori's a little fired-up now, though she is still reeling from the shock. I'm questioning how I'm still holding it together right now, but we just gotta keep going for now. Like Bede says, we can be miserable after all this is over.

"Excuse me, Hachiken, Sayori. We've found some things."

Minori urges us towards the back closet, and right as we look in we see Bede and Ray inside.

"Ugh, too crowded. I've already found enough evidence here, it's on to the body now." Bede says as he exits and walks towards the corpse.

At the very least he's investigating and not being completely antisocial. Bede may not like us, but this trial is something that affects ALL of us, so he has to work alongside us. However, his attitude needs a lot of adjustment until we can even consider calling him an ally. Also can't deny that he's a possible candidate for the blackened too. I don't know if he's being genuine, despite him being correct about focusing on investigation, so we need to keep an eye on him—

"Hachiken, eyes up." Ray interrupts my deep thoughts.

"S-Sorry." I sheepishly apologized.

"So what did you guys find in HEEEEREEE?!"

Sayori walks in without watching her step and slips on a large mess of baseballs, landing on her butt clumsily.

"Ow… huh? What are all these baseballs doing here?"

"Yeah, last time we were in here these weren't all scattered. They were all in… that!"

I pointed at the pitching machine, which was turned on!

"It seems like someone hit its switch and it automatically opened fire, completely emptying its ammo." Minori observes it.

Ray nods his head, "And anyone in its direct path can be knocked back for a short distance, based on its firing rate."

Huh, I have to wonder how fast and powerful it could be. Pitching machines can shoot pretty quickly, so you have to assume that—

*Bonk*

"Gah!"

Before I even realized I was in the range of the machine, I took a baseball to the forehead and lost my footing.

"Whoops. Just grabbed a ball off the ground and it just shot it out." Ray apologized, but I swear I saw him smirk a bit.

Karma will definitely come for him soon, I swear it.

Anyways, the firing rate is quick and its strength… hurts. It probably would be able to knock someone backwards, not to mention the amount of baseballs you could slip on. Definitely a factor in the victim's death. But wait a minute, how could the pitching machine be active when the blackout occurred? Need to look into the timing of that too and when the generator activated.

"Pitching Machine" has been added to the Truth Bullet section of your handbook.

"Blackout" has been added to the Truth Bullet section of your handbook.

"Generator Activation" has been added to the Truth Bullet section of your handbook.

After recovering from that embarrassing event, though that seemed to make Sayori giggle so it was a tiny bit worth it, I moved on to something more important. Like that open window right above the pitching machine.

It wasn't very big and not too high up, but someone could manage to squeeze their way through if they could. Thus making it a perfect escape route for a murderer as well. But how to reach it… I've got it!

"Minori, could you see if you can reach that window up there?" I asked my fellow glasses wearer for a quick favor.

She looks at the window and tries to find a way up to it, she finds that the quickest way is to use the pitching machine as a boost. I noticed that the machine shut off when Minori stepped on the switch too, so maybe it got turned on during the blackened's escape?

"Pitching Machine" has been updated in the Truth Bullet Section of your handbook.

Minori reached the window and inspected it from the inside and outside.

"The blackened could definitely have used this window as an escape route, and from what was left here it seems as though they did."

She carefully came down from the window and showed us a burnt piece of cloth. Hard for me to tell what kind of clothing it was on first inspection, but it was pink.

"Open Window" has been added to the Truth Bullet section of your handbook.

"Burnt Cloth" has been added to the Truth Bullet section of your handbook.

It seems as though we're done with the closet and now we turn our attention to… the body. Ack, it sent shivers down my spine, knowing that this was once a person that we knew.

"I'll take a look at it if you all can't handle it." Ray states as me and Sayori both breathe a sigh of relief.

Ray inspected the body, but even he couldn't tell us who this was. Their skin was mostly gone, and you could see a bit of their muscles and bone and— I'm just gonna shut up now. And I thought seeing farm animals die made me squeamish…

"I've got something on them, maybe this will tell us who it is." Ray whips out their e-Handbook.

That's when I remember that our names pop up whenever we turn them on, perfect! Just knowing who the victim is would be helpful to the case, even if we feel terrible for their death.

I click on the screen of the handbook and… eh?

I tap the screen a few more times and it just refuses to turn on.

"Is it broken?" Sayori pokes at the pad herself.

"Agh, just when it seemed like we were getting somewhere." Ray shook his head in annoyance.

Minori adjusted her glasses, "It looks like finding out who the victim is will be just as difficult as determining the blackened."

I'd hate for her to be right about that.

I haven't updated this fic, since APRIL?! Jeez, I'm really sorry folks. It's been difficult to write as of late, so waiting this long has got to be a downer. I don't think this chapter is long enough to be satisfying to you all, but it is what it is. Took forever for me to figure out how this case is gonna work and I'm still having trouble. Hopefully the next chapter will be out sooner than this. Gonna be working on another Guardians chapter for now, which is gonna have a quick announcement along with it. I'll see you all soon peeps! - Renegade Braveheart