It's PUNISHMENT Time! (Chaos Club x Danganronpa Fic)

Nine

"What?" Tommie exclaimed.

Evan felt a chill run down his spine as he stared up at the scientist, whose face gave away nothing.  What was he hiding from them?

"Welcome back!" Ace greeted from their judge's chair as the elevator doors opened and the group spilled out into the court room. "Oh, this case was so good!  I'm excited to see how you all deal with it."

As soon as everyone was positioned at their podiums, all eyes went to Stratus.

"What did you find?" Alister demanded.

The dirty-blonde held her gaze briefly before reaching into his pocket and removing a long, thin object.  A jump rope.  It took Evan a second before he saw a few small droplets of blood decorating its smooth surface.

"I would never have known if it weren't for Amy clearly putting up a struggle.  She had scratches along her wrists from hitting and scraping them on the pool deck, and some certainly looked like cuts.  If she was getting strangled out of the water, then there's no doubt that her blood could have gotten on the jump rope as she tried to free her neck," he rasped in a low voice.

"Where did you find it?" Jax questioned.

"The boys' locker room."

"And since Amy couldn't have had access to the boys' locker room, that means her killer has to be male," Dawn realized. 

"Ooh, but what if I threw a curveball at you?" Ace interrupted. "Jax, I'm aware you went to the front hall on your little exploration.  What did you find?"

Jax's eyes widened. "I found a table with three digital handbooks.  Two didn't work, but the third was Narwhale's.  One of the others had to have been Ash's, right?"

Ace giggled. "And what if I told you that Ash had access to the boys' locker room?"

"That just seems rude to them," Alister huffed.

"Look, the building was already built like this.  What if Ash wanted to go swimming, huh?" Ace fired back. "We had to give them access to somewhere."

"But if two of them didn't work, then there's a chance that neither of them even is Ash's!" Evan looked around as he began to understand his own words.

"Everyone, turn on your digital handbooks to confirm that they belong to you," Dawn ordered.

Immediately, everyone fumbled for their handbooks.  While it wasn't helpful to see everyone holding their own handbook, this did mean...

"So the killer is Evan, Jax, or Stratus, then," Tommie said.

"Well, does anyone else have anything to share?  Anything helps." Dawn looked around expectantly as she spoke.

Tommie's eyes lit up. "Wait, I totally forgot!  I found this when Evan and I went to the trash room." 

She dug through her pocket for a moment before revealing a small scrap of singed fabric. "I have a feeling that this is important, but just to make sure... can you tell us what this is from, Alister?"

The blonde tossed the scrap to the fashionista, who caught it before observing it for a few moments, stretching it out and feeling it until she gave a nod.

"This is bathing suit material, that's for sure," Alister announced. "It smells like it's been used, too.  It must be the culprit's."

"That's not all we found in the trash room," Evan added. "There was a big pile of burnt trash next to the incinerator, which had been left on."