Hetaronpa (Danganronpa/Hetalia)

Chapter Two

| CHAPTER TWO

I turn around, most likely along with everyone else.

Monokuma is standing behind us, looking absolutely ecstatic.

"What do you mean, it won't be necessary?" asks Mathias in a sharp tone.

The principal brandishes something to us. "I'll show you!" He walks toward Arthur's door, and we separate to let him pass.

Five seconds later, the door opens a crack. No light spills out into the hallway.

"What just happened?" I ask, not being able to see in account of Berwald blocking my view.

"I opened the door with my skeleton key!" Monokuma answers.

Well, that's certainly reassuring. He can get into any room whenever he so desires.

"Bye, students! Feel free to go inside. Kirkland won't mind," says the bear before sauntering off.

"Who's going to go in first?" Milen asks timidly.

I kind of want to, but I really don't want to raise any more attention to myself. These people make me slightly nervous, so I don't want to encourage them in any way.

I guess that makes me a bad person, but it's just instinct. Any one of them could kill me and they would go free, easy.

"I suppose I'll do it," Roderich announces. It's become apparent as to who stepped up as the leader of our small group.

I hold my breath as he pushes the door open and switches on the light.

A moment later, all of our fears are confirmed.

We gather into Arthur's room. In front of me, I can hear weak sounds of surprise, and someone says, "Oh, God."

I look at the bed and can see why. Arthur's in it, and he could be sleeping. But he's not.

His neck looks terrible. It's dark purple and laced with a thin cut. A small amount of blood has leaked out, and almost dripped on the bedsheets.

But the real clue that he's dead is that his chest isn't moving. And, of course, his eyes are wide open.

Arthur Kirkland is staring up at the ceiling, seeing nothing.

I look away, biting my lip. These stupid classmates of mine... At one point, we all agreed that we wouldn't start killing each other. No matter what. But now Arthur is dead, and the killer is unknown.

"Who did this?" Mathias asks, his voice stony. "I know it was one of you traitors."

Nobody says anything. No surprise there.

"Maybe," Milen started, "it was Monokuma? To try and frame one of us?"

"Yeah, right!" A crackly voice on the PA system snickers. "I think you kids need a recap. Come to the gym, right now, or else!"

We have no choice. After discreetly covering the body with a clean bedsheet, we make our way to the gym. The principal is waiting.

"So, Arthur died!" he greets us. "I'm sorry about that. He really was such a gentleman."

"You're the one who killed him, so how could you say that?" Francis asks angrily.

I feel like Monokuma would look offended, if he could actually make any faces.

"Of course I didn't! The whole point of you people being here is to kill each other. Why would I take away the fun?" he asks.

"If you didn't, then who did? It couldn't have been one of us, because us remaining fourteen are still here. Why hasn't the murderer gotten away yet?" counters Tino. I'm kind of surprised, as he doesn't seem to speak up much during these discussions with the principal.

Monokuma starts laughing. He laughs for at least ten seconds. I again have to fight the urge to roll my eyes.

"You all really did forget about the trial part of this, didn't you?" he says. "I was hoping that would stick out the most."

Oh. He's right. The trial... I completely forgot in all the excitement of the past few days.

"Listen, you guys have a limited amount of time to investigate the place. After that, we'll start the trial! So put on your thinking caps and make haste."

| COMMENCE THE INVESTIGATION.

There doesn't seem to be much evidence, even after searching the whole school available to us.

In Arthur's room, we find his room key laying on the floor, a short distance away from the door. According to the digital handbook, the door was locked from the inside.

One group finds small pieces of a porcelain teacup in a hallway near the dormitory corridor.

Vladimir and Milen discover an empty teapot in one of the kitchen sinks.

The only other piece of possible evidence is a large wooden platform on wheels in a corner of the gym. There's a string attached, so it must be used for transporting large objects.

Hopefully this evidence will be enough. In addition, there's a murder log in our digital notebooks. It updates just after we find the last of the evidence.

Victim is Arthur Kirkland. Time of death was 10:17 PM. Cause of death: he was strangled with an unknown object. Apart from thin cuts on the neck as a result of strangulation, no other injuries on the victim are present. Cuts reach halfway around neck.

Five minutes after the murder log updates, Monokuma comes onto the intercom to instruct us to make our way to the basement courtroom.

We all get into the elevator. I feel incredibly tense, and I can only imagine what the others feel. The same or worse, no doubt.

And just as I realize that I'm genuinely scared of this whole school, the elevator doors open and the courtroom is revealed.

| CHAPTER TWO OVER