Entertaining a Small Thought

4th Arc Part 9: Disbelief

Silence. It was dead silence after Kokichi dropped that bomb on us. We all just stared at him for what felt like an eternity.

I blinked at him. I blinked again. I just continued staring at the smiling imp as my brain processed what he had just said. And after all that time, my brain formulated the perfect response, full of logic, reasoning, and intellect.

"...Huh?"

"What?" I wasn't far behind it seemed, as Shuichi did much the same as his eyes widened with every second.

"Y-You... What did you...?" Tenko began, stuttering as she tried to make a response.

"..." Maki, on the other hand, just glared, her eyes almost glowing red with hatred as she did. She didn't even dignify the accusation with a response. Kaede did that for her.

"Wait! What do you mean Maki is the culprit!?" It was only after her shout that our brains seemed to kick back into gear, and almost all of us started screaming our responses.

"That's a lie! That degenerate is lying again!" Tenko exclaimed.

"Honestly, Kokichi. Do you truly expect us to believe that?" Kirumi questioned in a disappointed tone.

"Why you...! Now you're accusing Maki again! That fake dying message wasn't enough, huh?!" I began with a low growl before raising my voice to an angry shout. "How dare you try to lie again! I don't believe it for a second!"

"Yeah! There's no way Maki could have killed Kaito!" Kaede nodded with me. "If she's the culprit, then how could she-"

"She didn't kill Kaito." Kokichi cut Kaede off. "Kaito isn't the victim of this case."

"H-Huh? What do you mean?" Kaede asked. "Kaito died first, so he must be the victim for this class trial, just as the rules state."

"No. He wasn't killed. He died from natural causes. Maki is the blackened who killed Gonta." Kokichi explained with a giggle.

"What?" Shuichi questioned, now even more confused than before as he put a hand to his head.

"Explain, Kokichi. Now." Rantaro demanded.

"Very well. I'll finish my confession!" Kokichi proclaimed. "After Monokuma gave me the flashback light that contained the secret of the outside world, I made a plan. And that plan was...a mercy kill."

"A mercy kill?" Kirumi repeated the chilling words.

"Yep! A mercy kill. You see, Rinny wasn't lying when he was describing the motive. It was pretty bad! So bad that I thought it would be best if all of us died instead of continuing just to find out that's what we were fighting for." Kokichi said without a drop of shame or sadness. "But I needed help for this mercy kill plan. So I brought in my favorite friend Gonta and showed him the motive."

"WHAT!? You showed that to Gonta!?" I yelled.

"Duh, of course I did. How else was I gonna get him to help me with this plan? After all, I didn't want to be the culprit of the case. If I was, and my plan succeeded, then I would have survived, and after seeing the motive, I didn't want that at all. So I got Gonta to help me."

"That means... You tried to make Gonta a killer!" Tenko shouted.

"Yep. That was the plan. Gonta was going to be the blackened, but it was going to look like I was the one who committed the crime. You guys wouldn't have believed me and voted for me as the culprit, then Monokuma would have told you guys that you lost. The trial would have ended with us all being killed, and Gonta would have been the only survivor."