The investigation was both going well and terribly. It was going well in that there were only three suspects. Thanks to Kyoko's strategy, most of them had stuck together on the first floor, until Hifumi had barged in on them in the kitchen, blubbering about stumbling upon the bodies when he investigated noises he heard coming from the sauna. Once Byakuya and Hiro were summoned from their rooms by Monokuma, it became clear that the only three without alibis for the double murder were Byakuya, Hiro, and Hifumi.
However, the crime scene told a different story. As stated by the Monokuma file, and confirmed by Kyoko, Toko and Taka had each died at close to the same time, Toko from blunt force trauma to the head, and Taka from bleeding out from multiple stab wounds. What's more, Toko was holding a bloody knife, likely pilfered from the kitchen, and Taka was holding a bloody wooden mallet, likely taken from the repository.
The conclusion was obvious, as demonstrated by even Hiro quickly proclaiming that "They killed each other!"
But Kyoko felt that was too obvious. Any of the suspects could have simply manipulated the crime scene so as to make it look like they killed each other. Neither of the victims were clutching their weapons so strongly that they couldn't have been placed there after the fact.
However, there was little evidence to be found that could point to which suspect, if any, was the culprit, and so the investigation was going terribly. In fact, there was only one other item of note at the crime scene: a bloody cloth near Taka's body. It looked like he may have tried using it to staunch his bleeding, before dropping it. Alternatively, it may have been used by the true killer to clean up any blood splatters that got on them.
Just to be sure, Kyoko checked all the trash cans and confirmed that the incinerator hadn't been used: there were no disposed of bloody clothes to be found. If someone else had killed either Taka or Toko, the stabs or the bludgeoning would certainly have gotten at least a little blood on them. So either the culprit had hid their bloodied clothes, likely in their room, or they had avoided most of the splatter and cleaned up the rest with the cloth.
Or it was as it seemed and they had simply killed each other. Kyoko sighed. This would be much easier if she could work with a detective's usual tools and check for fingerprints or DNA.
But as it was, Monokuma summoned them all for the class trial while, for the first time, all she had was conjectures and guesswork.
…
Once the bear finished repeating the instructions and started the trial, Hiro was the first to speak up. "So, like, what do we do if they just killed each other? Cuz', like, then none of us did it, right?"
"We will vote for each victim in turn!" Monokuma announced. "Why don't we start with Kiyotaka, the Ultimate Moral Compass? If you think Miss Toko killed him, you can vote for her. Or maybe it was one of you! Puhuhu!"
"Well, that's what we should do then, right?" Hifumi asked nervously. "Vote for each of them?"
"We need to make sure it wasn't one of you first!" Hina declared. "Most of us were together that whole time, so if someone else did kill them both, it would have to be Hiro, Byakuya, or Hifumi!" She looked proud of herself for coming up with that bit of logic, Kyoko noted sadly.
"M-me?" Hifumi protested. "But I was the one who found them and told you all about it!"
"Like, I was communing with the spirits, dudes! I was trying to get them to show us a way out of here, dudes! I wouldn't kill anyone!" Hiro chimed in.
Eyes turned to Byakuya, who sighed. "Don't you think that if I were to kill, I would wait for more favorable conditions? Honestly, killing two students when I only needed to kill one? And when a random guess would have a one-third or one-fourth chance of defeating me? Idiocy. Perhaps unsurprising coming from them," he pointed at Hiro and Hifumi, "but I am no fool."
"No, just an asshole!" Hina shot back. "Who else would still be playing Monokuma's game at this point?!"
The debate droned on, and Kyoko mostly tuned it out. Byakuya did bring up an important point. Why would two students be killed? Either because one was a witness to the murder of the other or because there were two killers. The stab wounds on Taka… there were multiple deep wounds. Whoever stabbed him had done so with passion. Could Hiro, Hifumi, or Byakuya be overcome by emotion to the point where they would repeatedly stab the victim that viciously? It seemed more like the sort of murder Genocide Jack would commit.
Kyoko idly noted that Makoto was taking charge of the trial now, trying to move it into a more productive conversation about how much time had passed between Hifumi hearing loud noises and Hifumi finding their bodies. An important point, but Hifumi readily confessed that he waited until long after the voices had died down to investigate, so there was still plenty of time for the culprit to tamper with the crime scene.
Kyoko tried imagining herself in Jack's shoes. Suppose Jack had decided to kill so she could get her trademark murder tools. She would probably want to stick close to the cute boy type that she had killed in the past. With how much she revered Byakuya, she probably would refuse to kill Byakuya until she got her murder tools back and could do it "properly." Hiro and Hifumi were not cute by any stretch of the imagination. Makoto was with us. That left Taka as Toko's most likely target. And the sauna would be a plausible place to find him moping, given that it had apparently birthed his friendship with Mondo.
It seemed most likely that Taka had been killed by Jack… or perhaps by someone who wanted to make it look like he had been killed by Jack. That seemed rather beyond Hiro's abilities, at least, unless his foolishness had been a ploy from the start… no, no one could act that well. Also, whoever did it would have to have the stomach for repeated vicious stabbings. Hifumi seemed much too squeamish for that. That left Byakuya, but he was right, this whole scene did not feel like some thing he would invent if he decided to murder. It was not stylish enough, just a simple presentation of two people killing each other, nor did the evidence favor him enough. Plus, he seemed smart enough to take the threat of a waiting Tragedy outside seriously and to be suspicious of any promised corportate secrets, so it seemed likely he lacked sufficient motivation to murder. So then, it really was Toko who killed Taka?
Kyoko sighed. All she had were guesses at psychology. She wanted facts.
Kyoko let Makoto and the others guide the trial discussion in circles for a while, as they all struggled with the meager information at hand. Once she felt confident Byakuya had had his fun, just as he had had in the previous trial, she spoke up during a lull in the conversation.
"Byakuya, what did Toko say to you between Monokuma's motive presentation and the murder?" Kyoko asked in her usual monotone. She had seen Toko follow Byakuya after the motive presentation, though that Toko had spoken to him was just a guess. Or, an expectation, rather, given the girl's obsession.
Byakuya hesitated.
"As you know, if we do not vote correctly, you will die along with the rest of us. You've enjoyed us wandering in circles without your guidance enough by now. Please, tell us what you know."
Byakuya smirked. "Oh, so the great Kyoko, who always has the answers, needs my help, does she? Well, I suppose I can oblige, this time." His smirk vanished and he sighed. "If you can believe it, that putrid creature was asking for my permission to kill someone. I ordered her to go away, but she pressed on. I then asked her why she wanted those scissors and wires so badly, and she said it was so she could kill me 'with the regal artfulness I deserve'. It became clear that the witch would not take no for an answer, so finally I told her to kill Taka, as the boy was useless anyway. That got her to leave me alone. I figured that if she was stupid enough to actually do it, it would be the easiest trial imaginable."
Kyoko ignored the surprised cries from Hina and Makoto. Byakuya's words struck her as sincere.
"Between Byakuya's testimony and the vicious stab wounds on Taka's body, it seems safe to say that Toko was the one to kill Taka," Kyoko announced. "Let us run with that assumption for now. Then who killed Toko?"
"Taka would be the natural choice," Sakura noted. "If he had the hammer on him when he was attacked, he could have used it to deal a killing blow before he bled out."
"I did not take him for the type to carry a weapon around with him," Celeste mused.
"Oh, maybe he got jumped in the repository and just grabbed what he could find!" Hiro claimed, looking proud of himself for the idea. "Then the killer could have moved him afterwards."
"No, that's wrong," Makoto declared. "Then there would be blood stains in the repository and the hallways. The fight had to have happened in the sauna. Also, that is where Hifumi heard their shouts."
"Oh yeah!" Hiro replied, undaunted.
"So either he carried around the hammer, likely plotting a murder of his own, or Toko's murderer did and then planted it on Taka afterwards," Byakuya said in his usual bored 'this is all beneath me' tone.
"Yeah, but which is it?" Hifumi asked with concern.
"Are you sure you only heard the voices of Toko and Taka, Hifumi?" Makoto asked.
Hifumi nodded. "It was mostly Toko - er, Jack - Jill? - it was mostly her laughing and screeching. Oh, it was scarier than the time little pudgy princess…"
Celeste cut him off. "Anyway, we should consider the odds of each suspect being the one to swing the mallet."
"I agree," said Makoto. "If Byakuya was telling the truth about his conversation with Toko, he would have no need to kill Toko when he could let Monokuma do that for him."
"Unless he wanted Monokuma's reward," Sakura observed.
"And he could be lying!" Hina added.
Byakuya scoffed. "Please, if I were to make my move, it would be nothing so droll as swinging a mallet."
"Yes, that would not fit his expected strategy," Celeste said. "With stakes this high, he is the type to fold until he can safely all in."
"What… what does that mean?" Hiro asked.
"It means the odds of Byakuya being the murderer are relatively low. Not a gamble I would take," Celeste answered, twirling her hair.
"Hmm.. what about Hiro?" asked Hifumi.
"What? It wasn't me! For serious!" Hiro shouted, shocked.
"Unless he has been playing a long con from the beginning, he simply does not have the poker face to hide that he has murdered," Celeste answered.
"Is that what counts for evidence?" Byakuya sneered.
"Evidence is hard to come by in this case," Kyoko spoke up for the first time in a while. She was looking at Celeste curiously. She had not considered that in a trial based on psychological guesswork, the Ultimate Gambler should be the one to take the lead - but it seemed obvious now. "But we do know that if the killer was not Taka, they planted the hammer on Taka's body, and wiped any blood splatters off with a cloth they also planted on Taka. That takes an amount of foresight I doubt the Ultimate Fortune Teller possesses." Kyoko smirked, just a little.
"Yeah, I - hey, wait, what are you saying?" Hiro replied.
"That leaves us with Taka or Hifumi," Celeste ignored him, staring pointedly at Hifumi. "And as I said, Taka did not seem the type to carry a weapon around, much less swing it with enough force to kill while he was bleeding out."
"Wha?" Sweat poured down Hifumi's forehead while he chewed one of his fingernails. "But you can't suspect me! I was the one who found the bodies!"
"Telling us about your crime could have been an attempt to clear yourself of suspicion," Sakura suggested.
"No, I wouldn't!" Hifumi protested, uselessly wiping the sweat from his brow with his free hand. "Look, Taka was unstable. Who knows what he was capable of? You can't accuse me with no evidence!"
"Hifumi is large enough, he could probably kill Toko with one swing," Hina stated.
"But he's right," Makoto said. "Taka was probably in the sauna to mourn Mondo. He may have come to a resolution, regained the will to fight. We shouldn't bet our lives on a guess."
"Hifumi," Celeste said sharply. "Your sweat is disgusting. Take out your cloth and clean yourself."
Hifumi started. He moved a hand to a pocket at his side, before widening his eyes and taking a small cloth from a pocket in his shirt. It was patterned with some anime character. He hesitated, then started using it to dab at his sweat, soaking it quickly.
"That wasn't very nice, Cel-" Hina began.
"It's Hifumi," Celeste announced. "He killed Toko."
"Wha-what?!" Hifumi dropped his soaked cloth to the ground, eyes wide. "No… No, it wasn't me!"
Kyoko thought his behavior was strange, but she did not know how Celeste could be so certain.
"When gambling for high stakes," Celeste explained, idly twirling her hair again. "You must pay careful attention to the mannerisms of those around you. Anything could be a tell, an indication they are bluffing. When Hifumi gets nervous, he sweats, and he cleans himself up with a large cloth in his pants pocket. That cloth is missing now. Instead, he used the much-too-small cloth that he usually uses for cleaning his glasses - not a cloth he would dirty with his sweat. Plus, his poker face is terrible."
Kyoko turned to Hifumi, who was staring wide-eyed, sweat pouring down harder than ever. Now that she thought about it, she could remember seeing Hifumi use a white cloth to clean his sweat in the past, not a patterned one. And that white cloth would be about the size of the bloody one found on Taka's body.
"Hifumi, where is your usual filthy cloth?" Byakuya demanded.
"Missing!" Hifumi cried weakly, his knees wobbly. "I must have misplaced it. That doesn't prove anything!"
Hiro was staring at the small anime patterned cloth on the ground. "You had it when we talked last night, dude. And your glasses cleaning cloth there, you told me it was, like, a prized possession. You wouldn't let me touch it, remember? I didn't think you would use it to wipe your sweat, dude."
"I… I… yes, that was a mistake, it's just… all these baseless accusations…" Hifumi muttered as he bent to pick up his anime cloth and stuffed it in his shirt pocket.
"I think we're done here," Byakuya announced. "Makoto, go over the whole case again, from beginning to end."
"Er, okay," Makoto said. "So, what we're thinking now is the most likely scenario is that Toko - that is, Genocide Jill - asked Byakuya who she should kill so she could get her murder tools. Byakuya told her to go for Taka. Taka was in the sauna, probably mourning Mondo, when Jill came in and attacked with a kitchen knife. Taka quickly died from his wounds. Meanwhile, Hifumi was nearby, probably heard the shouting, and investigated, wielding a hammer he had taken from the repository earlier. Perhaps Toko noticed him and turned her knife on him, or perhaps Hifumi caught her by surprise, but either way Hifumi was able to kill her with one mighty swing of his hammer to her head. He then used his sweat cloth to clean up any blood that splattered on him, and placed both the cloth and the hammer on Taka's body. He then went to get us, hoping this would clear him of suspicion and that we would think the two victims had killed each other."
"But… but you have no proof," Hifumi protested weakly.
"No, this is a gamble, any way you look at it," Celeste answered. "But I have never lost a gamble. Let me remind you all that Hifumi is conveniently missing his disgusting sweat-cleaning cloth, that his guilt is written all over his face, and that the crime does not fit the psychological profile of any of the other suspects."
"Nor do the repeated stabbings of Taka fit the psychological profile of anyone but Genocide Jill," Kyoko added.
"I don't like it," Makoto muttered. "But it does seem like the best idea we have."
"Well, then, it's time to vote!" Monokuma said happily. "For the first vote, who killed Taka? Place your bets! Will you make the right choice, or the dreadfully wrong one?"
With a sigh and a pit in her stomach caused by all the guesswork involved, Kyoko voted for Toko.
"And now," the bear announced gleefully. "Who killed Toko? Place your bets! Puhuhu!"
Kyoko glanced at Celeste, who stared at her vote with grim determination. Kyoko turned to her own ballot, and as the pit in her stomach grew, she voted for Hifumi.