Short Stories/Song Lyrics

03 - Leon Kuwata

!!SPOILERS FOR NEW PLAYERS!!

IF YOU HAVE NOT PLAYED DANGANRONPA: TRIGGER HAPPY HAVOC, SKIP THIS CHAPTER. IF YOU HAVE, FEEL FREE TO READ! THANKS.

"LET THE TRIALS BEGIN~!!!"

I think I'd better take one more look back at the case from the beginning. Last night, the killer went into the room Sayaka was in. In other words, my room. From what we can tell, Sayaka invited that person there intending to kill them. She attacked them with the knife she had taken from the kitchen earlier but then, something happened that she wasn't prepared for. They'd grabbed the fake sword I had put in my room and fought back. During the struggle, a strike from the sword broke Sayaka's right wrist and that's when she lost her grip on the kitchen knife. Finding herself cornered, Sayaka panicked and ran into the bathroom. The killer went after her, but couldn't get the bathroom door open. What they didn't know was that my bathroom door got stuck easily, and there was a trick to opening it. Sayaka knew that because I'd told her, but of course the killer had no way of knowing. So instead, the killer forced the door open, took the kitchen knife and stabbed Sayaka. But with what strength she had remaining, she left a dying message. To keep the killer from noticing, she wrote it on the wall behind her. And with that, all of her strength was gone. With Sayaka dead, the killer quickly began destroying the evidence. First, they took off their shirt, which was covered in their victim's blood. Then, they took the lint roller in my room and cleaned up the entire area. They wanted to make sure they got rid of any trace they'd ever been there. Afterwards, the killer headed over to the trash room to destroy their bloody shirt. They tried to burn the shirt using the incinerator there. But the trash room was blocked off by an especially sturdy gate, preventing access to the incinerator. So, they'd come up with a plan to use Hiro's crystal ball, which he had left in the laundry room. The killer managed to throw the ball through the gap in the gate and hit the incinerator's switch. For any normal person, that'd be an impossible throw, but the killer had the confidence to take a shot. And that's because the killer... was the Ultimate Baseball Star. The crystal ball, thrown with absolute precision, hit the switch on the incinerator, which then quickly roared to life. Having destroyed the final piece of evidence, they left the area with, I imagine, a sigh of relief. But there was one thing they missed. Part of the shirt they'd thrown into the fire burnt away and fell out of the incinerator. The killer didn't notice this, and so left behind a piece of indisputable evidence. Isn't that right... Leon!? 

"Time to put it to a vote~!"

"..."

"And the killer is...."

"LEON KUWATA!!!"

G A M E   O V E R

L E O N   H A S   B E E N   F O U N D   G U I L T Y .

T I M  E   F O R   T H E   P U N I S H M E N T !

// A few answers to common questions regarding this chapter:

 (Obviously spoilers!)

 - What was the victim's original intention?-- To murder a fellow student and have Makoto take the fall, hence the room switching. After the killing, everyone would believe the sweet innocent pop star, making it impossible for Makoto to convince the others of his innocence, especially given the lack of any proof.

- Why was the murderer even executed? It was obvious the killing was in self defense. -- Read this carefully: NO. The murderer did not kill in self defense in any way whatsoever. The victim did try to kill him/her, yes, but once the victim's wrist was broken and (s)he had retreated into the bathroom, the killer could have - and should have - just walked away. Instead, (s)he went back to his/her room, grabbed the screwdriver from the toolkit, broke down the bathroom door, and inflicted the stab wound. Legal defense can only be invoked when the original attack is still ongoing. The victim was completely harmless at that point and the killer went ahead with the murder anyway. It wasn't legal defense, it was an execution. Not a kill out of necessity, but out of opportunity. Celeste makes this same argument in the game when the killer tries this exact defense for his/her misdeed, and Celeste is absolutely right.

- How was the killer identified?-- The toolkit in his/her room is the final proof to determine the killer's identity, since everyone else's toolkit would have been untouched, while only the killer's would have been opened.

-elstormo (on youtube)

//word count: 811 words.