Danganronpa: Frozen Mayhem

2-5: Deadly Life (Trial)

The elevator dinged, signalling the end of its long descent. The students stumbled out of the claustrophobic elevator onto the plush carpet of the trial room, staring down the small form of Monokuma, seated at the head of the circle of stands.

They hadn't seen him in person (in bear?) for a while, which made it easier to pretend that everything was okay. Now that they were looking at the tyrannical 'headmaster' responsible for all this chaos, the realisation that their friends were truly dead began to set in further. Feet dragged along the floor and shoes clacked on wood as the twelve took their spots in the trial room.

Seishiro paused, leaning the broken shovel against the side of his stand before taking his place.

This time, there were three new stands in place. Ryousei's and Umeko's faces were crossed out by the same blood-coloured X as Yoshikazu's, but Shigeko's was different from them. Hers was crossed out with a knife and fork, a nod to her talent and most likely to distinguish her as having been executed instead of murdered.

Monokuma produced a gavel out of nowhere, banging it on his stand to draw attention. "Come one, come all, and welcome back to the Class Trial! Ooh, I can just feel the despair radiating off each and every one of you-! Now, this is where you get to try and figure out the culprit of this thrilling double murder! When you think you've got it down pat, I'll open up the voting! If you get the blackened right, they'll receive an extra-special execution, and if you don't then that honour goes to the rest of you!"

"Right," said Komi. "Didn't you say this last time?"

"Ehh, so what if I did? You've all got an amnesia problem plus the memory of a goldfish, so I'm just offering a friendly reminder!"

Misaki bristled at the insult.

"Is no one else going to give me a snappy response?" Monokuma asked, looking around the room. "Well, if not, then let's get this party started! Let the trial begin!"

"Alright, so where do we start?" Etsuko asked confidently. "Should we work out the specifics of the murders first, like we did last trial?"

"Wait," said Keiji. "I've been thinking, and the timeframe of the murder seems to be rather impossible."

Yuji whipped out his ElectroID. "Well, the Monokuma file said it happened between 11:00 and 11:22, which is when we discovered the body. That's twenty-two minutes max, which is probably enough, right?"

"Wrong," said Seishiro suddenly. "We sent Kusuhara-san and Ichisada-san downstairs at, if I remember correctly, around 11:18." He looked to Keiji for confirmation, who gave it.

"Correct. Both of them should have walked down the corridor to the stairwell, passing by the exact spot where the bodies were discovered. What do you have to say about that?"

Naoki and Hitomi looked at each other, silently indicating for the other to speak first.

"We saw...nothing," said the astrologer.

"Yeah," agreed Naoki. "We weren't exactly looking around purposefully, but nothing was apparently out of the ordinary."

"Well, that makes both of you very suspicious," said Katsuo in a mock-pleasant tone. "Last I checked, there was a rather conspicuous pool of blood in the corridor leading to the classrooms on your left. How could neither of you have noticed that?"

Takehiko tapped his fingers on the wooden stand. "Clearly, the bodies were already there, most likely concealed somewhere, since nobody could commit two murders in four minutes. You would have no reason to check in the classroom where Hideaki's body was, but Aihara's was most likely hidden. Where, and how, is the question, given that her body showed no signs of being moved other than between the place of death and the corridor where we found it."