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

Seventeen

"Sorry, Dawn, we didn't mean to make you do all the work," Tommie mumbled.

Evan tapped his fingers against his wooden podium, his gaze flicking to each of the portraits of their dead classmates. Narwhale, Ash, Amy, Alister... now Stratus. A week ago, he'd been at home with his parents. Now, he was back in the court room, ready to try piecing together what had happened to the Ultimate Scientist.

"It's quite alright. I believe I'll start with my analysis of the crime scene, then," the Ultimate Psychologist began. "One of the first things that should be addressed was the head injury. Based on where the blood was found on the table near the body, it's safe to say that Stratus hit his head with extreme force against the table. The most likely scenario is that someone else pushed him."

"That checks out," Jax agreed. "And the culprit then hung him in order to finish him off?"

"Let's get back to that, because that's the part I still don't understand," Dawn said. "First, it's important to discuss what else was at the crime scene. Briefly touching on the shattered glass, there was a struggle between the culprit and Stratus, but that isn't surprising at all. But even more importantly, there was a bottle of the element Lead on the table where he had hit his head. Upon further investigation, there was also a vial of lead as well, except in a more liquid form."

"So he was trying to poison someone?" Tommie asked.

"Seeing as there was a bottle of arsenic in the cabinet, why didn't he use that instead?" Dawn countered. "Besides, even if he didn't want a more effective poison, why pick something that could potentially be seen beforehand? In other words, why not pick something harder to conceal?"

"Maybe his goal was to frame someone with less experience in chemistry," Jax pointed out. "Because let's face it, none of us really know our periodic tables by heart."

"But if he was trying to frame someone, we all know that if it were one of us, we still would've gone for one of the bottles with a skull on the label," the psychologist countered.

"What was he planning to do with the lead, then?" Tommie asked.

"I'm not sure right now. For the time being, let's continue on to the next piece of evidence. The ropes used to tie him up were from the curtains in the music hall. Someone had cut them- I saw while passing by on my way down here."

"Well, we've all been to the music hall, so we've all seen the curtains. That doesn't give us a better idea of who it is," Jax shrugged.

"Returning to the time of death, it was eight-thirty at night. An hour and a half before night-time officially began. I assume we all, save the culprit, were finishing up with whatever we were doing and preparing to return to our rooms," Dawn added. "I personally did not see anyone, not even Stratus. It's safe to assume that nobody saw anything, or we would already have a better understanding of what may have happened."

"I think we already know what happened, for the most part," Jax objected. "The culprit ended up at the Chem Lab, probably for some poison to use on someone, but Stratus was already there. They took the opportunity to strike and bashed his head against the table. Before Stratus went down, he got into a fight with the culprit, resulting in one of them falling into the cabinet and smashing the glass. After Stratus was either unconscious or dead, the culprit wanted to make sure that they'd finished him off, so they hung him."

"That doesn't explain anything about how my camera ended up there!" Tommie jumped in. "At some point last night, I accidentally left it somewhere, and the culprit probably found it. The problem is, even I don't know where I left it, so there's no telling who saw me leave it."