Dagger clapped happily like a toddler as the doors opened, leaping over to a large chair that loomed over the room. Behind him, Erik tripped and stumbled with him as Dagger dragged the chain forcefully.

Leo swallowed as he looked around the room. The walls were painted a deep red, with dimmed lights that gave it an ominous, dark feeling. In the center of the room, there were sixteen stands arranged in a circle, with all of them hosting a sign with their face on it. There was a bright pink X painted over Legend's sign, reminding the remaining fifteen of who they had lost.

Dagger smiled proudly as he leaned back in his chair, leaning a hand against his chin. "Well? You've all been to primary school. Go find the stand with your face over it! Hurry up!"

Leo shakily walked to the stand with the picture of his face labeling it, staring at the others who all stood in the same circle.

"Now!" the host explained. "Allow me to tell you guys what kind of party we're about to have. Now that you've all found your places, you will now have a limited time to debate with each other on who you think the murderer is! When I feel that the time is up, you will then vote on who you think it is. If you guess correctly, then you'll make it out of this room alive, and the murderer will be killed in a horrific way. If you don't, then I'll let the murderer escape and the rest of you will play with me. Now now, let's all cooperate and find out which one of you killed Legend Rowe, the Ultimate Fashionista! Ahahahaha!"

Leo clenched the rail of his stand tightly, lips pursed together.

Raven took a deep breath before she looked at all of them. "Let's get started. We should talk about the scene of the crime. Legend fell from above because he was on the curtain, correct?"

"Who cares about that?" Cassini asked in annoyance. "We already know who did it. It's obviously the person who built that stage," he pointed at the person to his left, "Phoenix!"

Phoenix's eyes widened as she shook her head. "I didn't do anything!"

"You're the only one who can control this stage," Nova said accusingly. "And besides, there's no mistake that he was rolled up in the curtain when he died. That means you must have murdered him beforehand while you were building this stage."

"Wait," Leo said as he closed his eyes. "She seemed just as shocked as us when the lights went out, right?"

"That could just be acting, couldn't it?" Yumi asked coldly. "We don't know each other."

"There's also the infrared sensor," Alice confirmed, holding up a photo. "That sensor, when triggered by a remote, will turn everything back on. The sensor was connected so that it would activate everything with the touch of a button. So, in addition to the manual switches that were added onto the generator, there was also the sensor that could be used just in case."

"So," Cassini smirked as he turned to Phoenix. "Why would you think to implement that?"

Phoenix shook her head frantically. "I didn't do it. I thought...for a big reveal...I would use the sensor to activate everything so it would activate everything at once."

Cassini rolled his eyes as he turned to Dagger. "It's obvious, isn't it? We've already come up with the answer. This was a sloppy murder. Finish it up."

"No. Stop," a voice said sharply as everyone turned to look at Elson.

Elson crossed his arms. "That testimony doesn't match up with the rest of the evidence that we found."

"Oh?" Nova raised a brow. "Do explain."

"First of all, there's the bloodstain found on the curtain," the Ultimate Conductor explained, holding up his tablet to show the photo. "This was found relatively high up, and facing backstage rather than the audience. In addition, there seems to be no other bloodstains other than that one."

Leo blinked in realization. "That's right. If he were rolled up in the curtain, because of gravity, the blood would have soaked through multiple layers. And, when rolled out, we would have seen multiple places where the blood had soaked through in a pattern."

"Not only that. The curtain was rolled up facing the audience, rather than away from them. That means Legend was placed on top of the roll since we found the bloodstain relatively high up."

"So Legend was on top of the curtain when he died. That doesn't prove Phoenix's innocence, right?" Angel asked curiously, tilting her head.

"That couldn't have been the case," Leo said. "If he were only killed at the stage, when and how would that explain the gratuitous amount of blood in his cottage?"

Gin smirked faintly in amusement as he leaned against his stand. "Allow me to add on to that. In addition to that, I found someone's cute footprints in the sand leading to the stage. That means whoever did this moved his body."

"M-moved it?" Eve asked fearfully as she held her head. "Without anyone noticing it?"

"Of course. They were brave enough to pick up his bloody, cold, rotting corpse, reeking of iron and heavy as all hell, and transport that all the way to the stage without anyone noticing a sound. Doesn't that make us sound like horrible humans? No one heard all of the sounds that must have been happening at that time!" Gin began to laugh as Eve clutched her head tighter, squeezing her eyes shut.

"Stop it, Gin," Leo sighed. "You're scaring her. Anyway, he has a point though. There's no mistake that Legend was murdered in his own cottage. You can see that by the blood and the footprints."

"That solves that part of the mystery, then," Raven said. "Unfortunately, it still doesn't clear Phoenix of the suspicions. But now there's the other question that this raises. How did the suspect transport the body? Assuming that it was Phoenix, she couldn't have carried his body."

Dagger whistled. "Yoohoo, do you want to know something useful?"

Yumi glared at him. "Say it, you sack of garbage."

Dagger pretended to act hurt. "I wanted to offer you help, and you treat me like that?"

Erik smiled shyly from his spot as he looked up, hands still bound. "You are a sack of garbage."

The host sniffled slightly. "You're all so mean...I don't want to share anymore."

"Wait, wait!" Elson held a hand up. "Tell us!"

"No!"

"I'll give you something in return!"

Dagger's eyes glinted slightly. "Oh? Please elaborate."

"That was a mistake," Brody mumbled.

Elson smiled nervously. "Wait, you're serious? I don't have anything to offer you."

"I mean, your obedience could be amusing to have. You're like a dog anyway." Dagger grinned mischievously. "I'm going to have so much fun with you after this, so please don't die~"

"Spit it out, Belmont," Raven snapped.

"Fine, fine, fine! This is about moving the body. I'll give you this tidbit: there are two people in this room that could have carried Legend's body. Leo and Gin are the only ones in this room who would be able to carry him without much trouble. Everyone else would have had to set him down or drag him."

Aspen hummed quietly before he finally spoke up. "So that means either those two did it, or a culprit besides them used something to carry the body, right?"

"There's no need. That means Leo did it," Elson said from across the room.

Leo blinked in disbelief. "Wait...what?"

The Ultimate Conductor, who had usually gazed upon him with a warm smile, was now studying Leo coldly with his arms crossed. "There's a lot of things that point to you. Don't get me wrong, I don't want you to be the murderer. But I won't side with you just because you're my closest friend here."

Alice's eyes widened in shock. "No! There's no way that Leo would do it!"

"Oh? Let's go down the list of things that point to him, then!" Elson challenged.

The Ultimate Pop Star clenched her fists. "You're despicable, you know that?"

"Stop fighting." Yumi commanded as she rubbed her temples. "We need to know everything before we can dispel theories and find the truth. Go with your explanation, Serafino."

"Now, Dagger just said that only Leo or Gin would be the ones who could carry Legend's body all the way from his cottage to the stage without breaking a sweat. We found no evidence of anything else being used as transportation, so you can narrow it down to those two. Also, Leo was the last person to see him that night when he picked up his outfit. In addition, when we were investigating Legend's cottage, we found a white button-up in the bathtub, two pairs of socks, and two knives with one covered in blood. We can definitively say that one of the knives was the murder weapon. And I'm 100% sure that the button-up we saw was Leo's."

"How is it Leo, then? We all have white button-ups in our room, right?" Cassini asked.

"We learned from Dagger, right after the murder, that our clothes are not only fitted to our style but also to our exact measurements. I checked the measurements on the tag, and the measurements suit Leo the closest. In addition, those socks that were found have a band around the top. Only Leo wears those kinds of socks! Am I wrong, Leo?"

Leo clenched his fists tighter to stop them from shaking, opening his mouth to say yes before he was interrupted by Gin, who held a finger to his mouth and looked at him in the eyes.

"There's a small flaw in your argument there, Serafino," Gin spoke up, the corners of his mouth lifted into a small smirk. "And it goes back to my evidence."

Leo nodded as he recalled what Gin had told him. "The toes were slightly splayed, right? That wouldn't happen if I wore them. They fit me to the teeth."

"Then...why is it Leo's clothes?" Eve asked.

"Perhaps someone got into his cottage when he wasn't looking?" Aspen murmured.

A chill ran down Leo's spine. "That couldn't be...I keep my doors locked and only Elson's ever been in my room. He's never taken anything either. As far as I remember, everything's been the same."

"Think harder, Leo," Gin urged with a playful tone. "You sure there was nothing out of place?"

Leo closed his eyes in concentration, trying to remember if he had noticed anything strange the past few days. His breath caught in his throat as he thought of something. "I didn't think of it at the time...but I found an empty hanger in my closet, on the floor."

"Bingo," the Ultimate Butler said as he leaned against the stand. "That's proof. As far as I know, Dagger has taken very careful measures to make sure that we always had enough clothing. And, I know that he replaces it in the middle of the day, so you should never have an empty hanger in that closet."

"How did someone get into his room?" Brody asked curiously. "Is there any way you can get in during the day?"

Leo shook his head. "No. We originally planned on breaking into Legend's cottage, and Dagger said it was forbidden."

"Is it forbidden at night?" Aspen turned to Dagger.

Dagger, who had a bored expression on his face, suddenly brightened and smiled down at them. "No. After all, night time is the perfect time to murder someone, is it not?"

Leo swallowed back the lump in his throat. "That means whoever got in did it at night. How did I not notice it?"

Cornelia scoffed. "You? The Ultimate Sleeper? You sleep like a sack of bricks. As long as they were careful to not make any loud noises, then they would've gotten away with it."

"That's that mystery solved. Back to the footprints that I was talking about," Gin smiled. "Do any of you know what it means if the toes are slightly splayed in the footprints?"

"They're...they're too big then, right?" Eve asked.

Gin burst out laughing as he clapped. "Exactly! They must have decided that shoe prints would be too risky, so they put on the socks. However, when socks are too big, you've got a lump of fabric flailing around while you walk. That's why those footprints look unnatural."

"So...whoever did this has feet that are smaller than Leo's then, right? That's like over half of the people here," Nova complained. "He's got giant feet."

"No, anything to limit the number of suspects will help us out," Raven said. "Who can we eliminate from the list?"

"Leo, Gin, and Cassini," Cornelia sighed. "That's only three people. Can we check out alibis to see if we can eliminate others? At the time of Legend's murder?"

"I was with Yumi, Raymond, Eve, and  Brody at that time in the bowling alley," Aspen responded.

"I was helping Gin in the kitchen," Angel smiled as she waved her hands.

"More like you sat there and kept throwing eggs into the pot of water I was trying to boil," Gin grumbled.

"I was at the park," Cassini said.

"I was preparing the fireworks in my cottage," Alice stated.

"I was with Elson, Nova, and Cornelia in the hotel lobby," Raven said.

"I was walking around from about 8:00 to 10:00," Leo said.

Raven nodded. "If I remember correctly, Leo was with us around that time."

"I was sleeping," Phoenix sighed.

"In that case, the suspicious people are Cassini, Alice, and Phoenix," Aspen noted. "We can rule out Cassini since his feet are bigger than Leo's."

"So...that leaves Phoenix and Alice," Elson sighed. "In that case, isn't Phoenix still the most suspicious? She knows the stage the best."

"Hold up. No normal human being could have murdered a person, dumped the evidence, put his body up on the stage, and pretended that nothing happened," Leo frowned slightly.

"There's a simple solution to that, really," Gin said. "It means they hid the body from us while we were going to bed."

"His lights were on, weren't they? We would have seen a body if it was in there. In addition, there would have been more blood," Nova crossed her arms.

"I guess that's what idiots like you must think, huh?"

Nova growled slightly as she threw her shoe at him. "Fuck you!"

Gin laughed as he dodged. "Don't be lazy and do it yourself!"

Yumi scowled. "Stop it!"

Leo carefully put an arm in front of Nova to stop her from fighting. "Nova's right though. We would have noticed something."

Gin tutted slightly before he scanned the fifteen of them. "Those bushes behind our cottages are really hard to see through, right? I've hidden countless things behind them, like Elson's hat, Yumi's earrings, Cassini's glasses. I'm sure I could hide a body there."

Leo's eyes widened. "His body...was in the bushes then?"

"That would explain why no one thought much of it, right?" Gin asked. "No one would have thought to check there for anything. We all wanted to go to bed so we could be awake for the fashion show."

"So...that means the murderer killed Legend, and then hid his body in the bushes so they could go back for him later? And no one saw them running around?"

"I saw a naked person running around!" Angel began to giggle as she tugged hard on the sleeves of Aspen's jacket.

Leo looked quickly up at the Ultimate Guard. "Repeat that again. You saw a naked person...at night?"

"Mhm! I was really tired, so I thought it was a dream at first when I saw them."

"Then there's a simple way to tell who it was then," Raven said. "I'm glad that our two suspects are starkly different from each other."

"What do you mean?" Raymond asked, clearly struggling to keep himself awake.

The Ultimate Knight turned to Angel. "What was the length of their hair?"

"Smart, smart," Cassini commented. "Phoenix's hair is much shorter compared to Alice's so even the dark won't hide that."

The fourteen of them turned attentively to Angel, who smiled and pointed at the girl in front of her. "It was Alice. The person's hair was long."