Trust.
That was all she had to go for.
But was even basic human trust useless in the 4th trial?
Was this brutal killing game going to rip her basic human conscience into pieces?
She thought about Tenko, and how horrified she looked when she realized HIMIKO, the adorable little girl who she fangirled about, was the killer being the double murder case. Her denial, her pain, all her anger, anger for which she no longer had a way to unleash. Kaede had somehow pulled her into reality then.
But what about now?What if a person important to her was the killer? Almost subconsciously, Kaede had grown to depend on Shuichi, to <em> love</em> him, even. If she broke right now, who would lead the gang? Gonta was dead. Kiibo was going to die. Tenko was impulsive. Kiyo and Angie were crazy. Kirumi was...okay, but she couldn't take the helm by herself and steer the boat in the correct direction without an order. They were all counting on her, to beat the mastermind.
<em>Stop jumping to conclusions, me! It's not completely clear that it's Shuichi anyways...that's right. It might be Korekiyo! Right, why was she so paranoid in the first place? Just because Shuichi was in the last pool of suspects doesn't mean that she should freak out like this! Just...follow the evidence. Follow the evidence.</em>
"Maybe we should talk about the piano strings missing from the Ultimate Pianist's lab," Kirumi offered. "How many were missing, exactly?"
"8," Kaede's heart panged with the pain of the grand piano's mutilation. "It was a whole scale right at the very right edge of the piano."
"Maybe the killer used the strings to restrain Gonta," Korekiyo offered. "In case he fought back, in order to make it seem like there wasn't any struggle,"
"But Tenko didn't find any of the piano strings at the crime scene! Gonta's body didn't have any signs of being tied up!" Tenko argued, looking partially concerned at the whole medical set up next to her, as the curtain shifted slightly. The monokubs had taken about 20 minutes to fix up Kokichi's head wound, but there still wasn't any sign that they were surfacing anytime soon. Kaede was starting to get worried.
"The killer got rid of the strings? Also, when we found Kiibo, he was clean! So we know the killer cleaned up somewhat." she explained.
"It would be relatively easy to clean the blood from Kiibo," Korekiyo remarked. "Anyone with an eye for detail and a wet rag could remove any traces of him being the murder weapon. If they wanted to get rid of the piano strings, they could just hide them in the warehouse or some dark corner in the Ultimate Pianist's lab, and no one would notice."
That was an unnecessarily detailed profile of the killer--so detailed it was suspicious. What had happened in Angie's lab, anyway? What testimony was Kaede supposed to believe, anyways?
"Why would someone lie about their testimony like that if they weren't covering something up? There was no way Angie could have murdered Gonta tied to a chair, so it has to be Korekiyo!" Shuichi declared.
Kaede wanted to believe him and to ignore the latter so bad. Right, all the signs pointed at Kiyo. This case was so easy, all she had to do was to say so. But what was this nagging feeling at the back of her head, the feeling that she was missing something?
<em>Could you be my sister's friend?</em>
<em>So then...I will arrange a chance for you and sister to meet.</em>
<em>Kehehe...I will need to come up with a good plan...</em>
Why would Kiyo be a mass murderer, anyways? Why did Kaede feel like she knew half the answer to his monster side? Sister...the split personality...the sickle to kill Angie...
If Kiyo had killed Gonta and was about to kill Angie, what was the point of changing his location. Why not just take them at once in Angie's lab? The only explanation was...
If he wasn't the killer. Sure, he's <em>a</em> killer, but he isn't <em>the</em> killer.
All of this mysterious non-evidency stuff was sort of tiring her out, but she managed to explain her theory to the rest of the Ultimates.
"So...Kiyo isn't the killer this time? Angie didn't know, Angie didn't know!" the artist giggled.
"Right, he isn't."
"No, that's wrong! I AM Gonta's killer!" Kiyo argued.
"Kiyo...?" Why? Why would he say that?
"I was lying about my testimony before. In reality, I led Gonta out of the Ultimate Artist's lab on the premise of talking to him, but then I perceived him as a threat and killed him, then went back to Angie's lab to kill her, "
Kirumi frowned. "Why is Kaede's lab?" she asked.
"So that I could frame her. It is her lab, after all. I should have known that none of you were that stupid. I managed to lead Gonta into her lab and kill him. Since I only needed to clean up any potential eyewitnesses before my main event, I used Kiibo."
It was certainly a confession, all right. It aligned with all of Kaede's hopes and seemed like the clean cut answer to this case.
So she had to make sure it was clean cut.
"But why confess? You just marked yourself as a really dangerous person in the Ultimate Academy! If we didn't find your identity, then you could have gotten away, scot-free!"
"I didn't really wish for all of you to die,"
What?
"That's how I planned this case out. You would only need to find the first killer, Kiibo in this case, and all of you would forgo execution. You would have no need to find Angie's killer, and even if you did or if I had no way to finish the job, the latter for which is true, I didn't really have any qualms about you hating me. I just wanted Sister back."
"I knew it was the degenerate male all along!" Tenko shrieked. "Monokuma, we have your answer!"
"I think we're ready to vote, Monokuma," Shuichi agreed. "You can execute Kiibo now."
"WAIT!"
