Danganronpa: Frozen Mayhem

1-4: Deadly Life (Investigation)

Seishiro went numb. It was like the energy had been drained out of him all at once. And he screamed with what breath he had left, in broken tones of failing lungs.

"I saw this...a bad omen in his future. But for it to be...so soon," whispered Hitomi. Despite usually being calm, her voice had a shaky undertone to it.

Two pairs of footsteps pounded down the hallway. "What, Nishimura-kun- what's going on- d-did you find- oh my god." Etsuko spoke in fragments, partially from shock and partially due to being out of breath.

Umeko paused at the doorway. She had opened her mouth to speak when a chime played from the speakers.

"Ding Dong! A body has been discovered! The investigation period shall now begin, and a Monokuma File has been added to your ElectroIDs. When the investigation period is over, the class trial will commence. Good luck, students!"

Etsuko looked confused and almost frantic. "What? Wh-what are we supposed to do here?! This isn't-"

"Go and alert the others," cut in Umeko.

With a groan, Etsuko ran towards the cafeteria, only to be greeted by the rest of the students coming to investigate the source of the announcement. Seishiro barely paid attention to the increasingly horrified reactions around him and instead watched the corpse, as if he could make it go away via sheer force of will.

Yoshikazu was dead. The same person who had, only a day ago, spoken of life and beauty. Now, to have that taken from him...

"It's about time someone got some murdering done!" The intercom crackled to life and the group of students snapped to attention. "Now, since you're all amateurs at this whole detective business, I'll give you a few pointers. Right now's the investigation period - you've got a set amount of time to find as much evidence as you can, to figure out which one of you is the culprit!"

Naoki cupped his hands and yelled, as if Monokuma couldn't hear him despite not being in the room. "Hey! How do we know it's not you that killed him?"

"Well, for starters, I'd make a much bigger deal of it. And all will be revealed in the Class Trial, 'cause this murderer did a pretty sloppy job of it!"

"We can't just believe him-"

"He could be right! Can we just go along with this for now?" Etsuko complained.

"Anyways!" Monokuma cut in again. "I've installed a handy dandy Monokuma File in your ElectroIDs to help you out. When the investigation is over, the Class Trial begins! But we'll burn that bridge when we get to it," he added.

Umeko raised an eyebrow. "Was that last part supposed to make sense?"

"Everyone, we should make a start," said Seishiro suddenly. "It's life or death for us right now."

He looked back upon the group. Misaki comforted Katsumi, who sat on the floor shaking. Shigeko covered her ears and faced the wall. Yuji looked pale, seemingly about to throw up. Katsuo seemed resigned, eyes closed. Takehiko wore an expression of grim determination.

"Are we splitting up?" Keiji asked. "If so, make sure that everybody is accounted for so that the culprit can't tamper with evidence."

Between jumbled words and students shoving past each other, they split to search the building. Seishiro stayed put, unable to look away from Yoshikazu's body, as if finding a strange fascination with the grotesque.

Umeko and Takehiko stood with him, seemingly waiting for something.

Right. Investigate.

He reached a hand towards the doorknob to pull the open door wider, but was stopped by Takehiko grabbing his forearm with a grip of iron.