Dangan Ronpa

Chapter Eight

The anxiousness falling over my body was overwhelming. Behind the red door that was revealed to us after the announcement was a large steel elevator. One by one, each of us entered and settled in a spot within the spacious confinement. No one stood too close to one another, most likely from fear and distrust that one of us supposedly killed Jinx. I didn't want to believe it, but a feeling in the pit of my stomach continued to gnaw at me, telling me that this wasn't just a ploy set up by Monokuma.

When the elevator slowly came to a halt with a metal against metal screech, the doors swung open and we were released into the new cold atmosphere. It was exactly how I pictured it - a replica of a courtroom. There were sixteen podiums in all, each made of beige wood, and they were all connected to form a perfect circle. Monokuma sat at a throne above the rest of us.

"Pick a spot! But don't take one that's already occupied!" he sneered, glancing over at one podium with a picture above it. She was smiling, her black and pink locks intertwining with her friendly appearance. It was Jinx, the person that was now lying in a dead heap located in the kitchen. It hurt to see her before, and then remember the sight of her corpse. I could see Haru shivering through the corner of my eye.

"Why?" he said almost inaudibly. "What's the point of that?" His arm was shaking, but it was clear he was pointing at Jinx's podium.

"It's so lame for people to get left out of things just because they're dead! That's so mean! So I leave her here as a reminder of how she was all once your friend! And you let her die..." Monokuma responded. His tone became serious and somewhat scary on the last sentence. No one retorted back, but quietly sat down in separate newfound podiums. Jinx's picture was immediately across from me, and I immediately regretted choosing this spot due to her pair of eyes staring at me.

"Okay, since this is everyone's first class trial, I'll explain how this works. Your votes will determine the results! If you can figure out "whodunnit" then only they will receive punishment. But if you choose the wrong one..." Monokuma's grin widened. "Then I'll punish everyone besides the blackened, and the one that deceived everyone else will graduate."

"Just to make sure... The killer really is one of us, correct?" Leo asked, probably unsure if one of us was actually capable of murder.

"Of course! I wouldn't lie about that!" Monokuma giggled. "I'm getting bored - Get this thing started already!"

"Okay, first, we should just go over a case summary." Night said. Everyone could see how her talent was becoming very useful in this new school life. "We should just go over this report called the Monokuma File. He gave it to us while we were investigating." She quickly read aloud the details of the death.

"So she was murdered sometime between 6:30 and 7:00." Edward said clearly. "So that means any one of us could have killed her and ran back to their room, and then pretend to be shocked when they found the body along with the rest of us. We were all grouped up in the kitchen around 7:20."

"You need to crawl before you can walk man!" Sully exclaimed. "We should worry about when it happened later; first we need to figure out how it happened."

"Well, duh. I mean isn't it obvious, the only weapon found at the scene was a knife, and it even had blood all over it." Veronica responded, sounding slightly annoyed.

"Well I did observe the body, and the wound was approximately half a foot long, and that knife was only three inches thick at most." Brian argued. I didn't even notice the flaw.

"But there's something else." Night said calmly. "The tear on Jinx's shirt; it continues for at least an extra foot than what the cut does, so why is that?" Suddenly, I realized what she was getting at.

"I understand." my own voice spoke. "The murder weapon was definitely the knife; nothing else was found at the scene. As for the measurements that don't match up, there's a simple explanation."

"And what is that?" Penelope questioned. She was definitely suspicious of me.

"Just say for instance, someone stabs you, what would your first reaction be? Probably to immediately push them away. Now how would the attacker approach their victim after they attempt to fight them off? Most likely to struggle back, correct?"

Multiple nodding heads encouraged me to continue.

"During this short exchange, the blade was dragged down the victim's chest, which explains the oversized wound, and the strange long tear in her shirt. This is also why we found the blade near her body, and not lodged into her body."

"H-How did you get that... out of s-such little ev-evidence." Skai stuttered, seeming more nervous then usual. 

"I tried putting myself in the victim's shoes. Then I did the same for the culprit. The connection just snapped inside my head." I explained, nervously scratching the back of my head.

"Are you guys really falling for this?" Penelope sighed. "No one could just think of that off the top of their head. Wasn't it suspicious that Tamaki was the one covered in blood, and only rushed to get us all when he was spotted?"

"It's pointless to draw conc-" Night began, but Penelope continued.

"Currently, he's the only suspect. He's been pretending to befriend Jinx the past few days just so he could betray her and stab her in the back." Penelope hissed through gritted teeth. I looked around the circle, but no one would meet my gaze. Night was the only who was able to look at me, but unlike the others, her eyes shone with persistence instead of fear and uneasiness. 

"Incompetent imbecile..." Night shook her head, seeming irritated. We were all shocked by her comment. "If you even took a second to look over the evidence, you wouldn't dash to such hasty and idiotic conclusions."

"Upupu!" Monokuma laughed. "Things are really starting to heat up in here!"