Danganronpa: Until Proven Guilty

Chapter Four - 8: The Verdict for a Darkened Soul

trigger warning; descriptions of self harm and suicide

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"Daiki would never do that. He was murdered, I'm telling you."

"You deny the dark forces of our universe. It's clearly the ants that rotted his brain and forced him to throw himself off the rooftop."

"We need to weigh up our options, you don't-"

"It's Yana! It's fuckin' Yana!"

Why won't they shut up? Their voices are like mites eating away at every last brain cell I have. Consciousness slips away from me. I shut my eyes tight, scrunching up my lids and cocooning myself in darkness, as I clamp my hands over my ears. Anything - literally anything - to drown them out. Just to think for myself. But to no avail. Their muffled voices still ring through my ears like an alarm that never stops, just continuously ringing, and ringing, and ringing.

And then the noise stops all at once. I bask in the silence for a moment, letting normality return to me.

And then I open my eyes.

Everyone is staring at me. Even Daiki's portrait, judging me from beyond the grave. They all saw me acting like a child. God dammit. My cheeks heat up a little, and I'm probably already bright red.

"Everything OK, Kiki?" Haruka tilts her head, raising an eyebrow as worry fills her eyes.

I blink, taken aback. But I'm back in the room, " Y-yeah. Sorry."

"Can we get back onto the topic of this supposed note, then?" Mitsuharu says, sighing. He moves his hair from his striking eyes, and my heart starts to flutter. A sensation I'll never not feel, no matter how many times I look at him.

The note.

I nod, "Sorry."

Gathering all the paper scraps in my hand, I clear my throat and begin what feels like a monologue, "I-I think there might be two different notes."

Shiro narrows his eyes, dropping the tuft of hair he's playing with, "And what on Earth makes you say that?"

"They're on two different types of paper. One is lined and the other is plain."

I pass the papers around again, letting them observe for themselves. Doubt flashes over my mind. Did I look at them wrong? Am I dumb?

"You're right, Kihona!" Kohi beams.

That answers that one then.

"They're on two different types of paper," Ayana nods, "Different notes entirely."

As the notes circulate back to me, I look at them again, "The sentence 'This is for the best, goodbye' is written on another note. That's on the plain paper."

"The handwriting's much neater too," Mitsuharu says, "Seems like it actually had some thought put into it. The other one's a disaster."

Ayana purses her lips, "Maybe the killer and Daiki exchanged notes. I dunno why."

I study them. Mitsuharu's right. The handwriting's completely different, one scrawled and almost incoherent - the other neat. Almost planned. Calculated.

Yet there's many striking similarities between them. The letter 'e' has that stylistic slant throughout -  a slant I had engrained into my brain during handwriting lessons. And the looping of the underhanging letters. And the capital 'G' that has the same format that almost looks like a 6.

"I-I have a feeling these are from the same people," I say, gripping the shreds of paper tightly between my thumbs like they're precious heirlooms.

Kaso narrows his eyes, glaring at me stone cold, "The fuck makes you think that?"