She lay motionless in the room, blood pooling around her. The bear traps near the windows had snapped shut, ensnaring shreds of her uniform. A chillingly deep cut marked her throat, yet there was no sign of a weapon. It was utter chaos, overturned desks and a shattered bathroom door. She was gone.

Tora was dead. Both eyes were open and her hands were grasping at her throat, but she was dead. I didn't even need the body discovery announcement to tell me that.

My knees buckled and a cry escaped my lips as I buried my face in my hands. It felt like the world had crumbled beneath me and I was left with nothing but despair.

"Why...?" I whimpered. "Why her? Why did this have to happen?! I thought... I thought..."

Sometimes, we have to be strong, Suki. Sometimes we have to be strong.

"T-There's information in the monopad," Ruji said quietly from behind me. I didn't look up at him as he spoke, though. I didn't have it in me to lift my head. I couldn't risk seeing the horribleness before me again. I wanted to go home. I wanted my parents to hold me tight and tell me everything was going to be okay, just like they used to whenever I got nightmares.

"It's called the Monokuma File," Ruji whispered, carefully reading the information aloud. "Time of death was at 9:42 AM. That was just over thirty minutes ago... it also says the body was found in the cabin she and you, Suki Kiyama, share. Cause of death is a cut across the throat using an unknown object."

I shook my head. This was all too vivid to be real. Too horrifying. I didn't want to believe it.

"H-Hey, what are those?" Ruji whispered.

I could hear him put his tablet away and walk across the room. I didn't want to look up, but I found my head being raised anyway to look at him.

He had walked across the room toward my side of the bed, where there were a few arrows sticking out from the wood.

"W-What are those doing there?" I whimpered, feeling sick. The smell of blood was starting to make me dizzy.

"I don't know. She doesn't have any other injuries besides the cut... but her uniform is in the bear trap as well. See?" he asked, gesturing to the beartrap below the window. "Wow, you two didn't go easy when it came to booby-trapping your rooms, did you?"

"We wanted to be safe..." I whispered, slowly walking toward the beartrap and kneeling down by the school uniform that had been caught and torn in it. Yep, it definitely looked like hers.

Had our own traps gotten her? 

Was this my fault?

"What if she lost her monopad and tried to get in through the window, then tripped and fell and got her throat cut?!" I asked frantically. "What if-"

"Hey, shh..." Ruji told me. "This... I don't think this was an accident. Remember the blood outside?"

I did remember that. The bloody footprints that led away from our cabin. Someone had escaped.

We'd have to check those again later.

"Well, what now then? Someone gets to go home, right?" I sniffled. "That's it? They sacrifice her, and in exchange, they get to walk free-"

"It's not going to be that easy," a different voice said, making both Ruji and I squeal and jump into each other's arms.

We whirled around to see who, but the ultimate adventurer standing in my open doorway, holding up his own monopad.

He gave me an apologetic expression.

"I'm sorry," he breathed. "As soon as the announcement rang, I checked the tablet and came as fast as I could."

He invited himself in, then looked down at his monopad and began reading over different instructions. "According to the rules, we will soon be forced to go to a class trial, where the blackened and the spotless shall face off. If the blackened is not caught, they will be able to run free while everyone else is punished. If the spotless figure out who dunnit then only the blackened is punished."

"Punished as in...?" Ruji meekly asked.

Rantaro paused, biting the inside of his cheek slightly before looking up at the two of us. Though he spoke calmly, I could see the small hint of fear in his eyes.

"This says.... punished as in executed," he said.

A cold knot suddenly formed deep within my gut.

We were all going to be killed if we didn't figure out who did this?!

"What?! But the tablet didn't say that earlier!" Ruji exclaimed, holding his arms out. His face had turned three shades paler. "That... that's so terrible! Now someone else has to die too?!"

"I don't like it either," Rantaro breathed, somehow remaining calm. "But we have to figure out who did this, or we're all going to die. Now, who was with you when you discovered the body? Since the two of you are here, I assume it was you guys who found it."

Who was with us?

Ruji and I exchanged confused glances and slowly let go of one another. 

"Um... it was just us," I breathed. "No one else."

"No one else?" Rantaro asked. His shoulders dropped slightly as he placed one of his hands over his mouth and looked to the side. "Interesting..."

"Why?" Ruji asked.

"The monopad claims that in order for the body discovery announcement to be triggered, three students who are not the blackened have to have discovered the body," the ultimate adventurer explained. "Didn't you read the rules?"

I did, but clearly not thoroughly enough...

"Well, no one was with us," Ruji shakily breathed. "So... someone must have found her before us, then turned and ran or something."

"We need to find them," I stated. "We can ask them what they saw. Maybe they know something."

"Good plan, and good luck," Rantaro breathed. He quickly took one last glance over my room, then turned and started walking out the door.

"Wait, you're not going to help us?!" I asked.

He shook his head no while continuing to walk off.

"I have... my own investigating to do," he breathed. "Don't worry. You two seem smart. I have faith in you. Just... close and lock your door. You don't want someone else messing with the scene."

I nodded, but closing the door probably wouldn't do any good. The window was already broken. Heck, the broken glass was hard to miss seeing that it was scattered all throughout the ground just outside-

Wait, it was outside...

"Ruji, come here," I quickly breathed, grasping his hand and pulling him toward the window. He made a quiet squeaking sound, but didn't protest. 

I poked my head through the shattered frame and looked down at the ground. Surely enough, the glass was all outside.

"Someone broke out..." Ruji whispered in awe, his eyes widening even more. "Not in."

"Perhaps it was the killer," I breathed.

"Or perhaps it was the one who discovered the body..."

It could have been either of them. Heck, maybe it was both.

But if the glass was outside, then that meant that no one actually broke into our cabin. Someone must have been let in. Maybe Tora left the door open.

Maybe I left the door open.

Maybe the bloody footprints really weren't from the killer. What if Tora really was killed by our own traps and left the door open, then when someone came and found her, they got scared and jumped out the window?!

No, that couldn't be right. The door would have been much easier to use, I would think. Plus, by the time we got to the body, our door was shut.

This was all so confusing. How were we supposed to figure anything out?! None of us were detectives! We were just scared kids!

"She's missing an outfit," Ruji breathed, snapping me out of my spiraling thoughts.

"Huh?" I asked, turning to face him. He had one of her drawers pulled open and was looking over her clothes. "Hey, what are you doing!? That's her stuff-"

"Sorry! Sorry!" he quickly exclaimed, defensively putting his hands up. "I-I'm not trying to be creepy! The monopad just states that each of us gets three spare outfits restocked and cleaned daily, so I thought I'd check since her clothes are in the bear trap. And she's missing one. I mean, we know that parts of her outfit are in the beartrap, but the outfit she's wearing doesn't look ripped."

"So... you think someone stole one of her outfits and got it partially caught in the beartrap while trying to escape?" I asked, raising an eyebrow and crossing my arms at the ridiculousness. This must have just been an excuse for him to look through her clothes. Ugh, men.

"No! I mean... I don't know. Sorry, forget I said anything. I just thought it was weird that there's clothes in the bear trap, but the outfit on her looks fine. I-I'm not trying to be weird. I don't usually even like girls! I just... I... I just thought it was weird, that's all."

He began to nervously sweat as he fidgeted with his collar and looked away. I shook my head, pity winning me over.

"Don't feel bad. I won't forget. It's probably important." I lied. "We just don't know how yet. So let's just put a pin in this and... come back to it."

"Okay..." he trailed off, messing with his gloves now. Despite doing such a strange thing, I could tell that the anxiousness was real. Maybe he really wasn't trying to be creepy.

After briefly looking over the room one last time, we decided to go out and check the bloody footprints. However, when I saw them before, there were also two bloody daggers on the ground. Now, there was only one.

Had Rantaro taken one? 

Why would he do that?

"It couldn't have been him," Ruji said as if reading my mind. "If he was trying to hide evidence, he would have taken both. He's probably just... conducting his own investigation?"

"Yeah. He seems to like doing things on his own," I muttered with a sigh. I didn't mean to sound snarky, but I couldn't help coming off slightly annoyed. I mean, I just lost my closest friend in this place, so maybe that's why my emotions were such a mess. Plus, Rantaro didn't seem to be helping all that much. We probably would have been better off had we all worked together. He was clearly more observant than Ruji and I. (No offense to Ruji.) Of course, he still seemed like a walking mystery, so working with us would probably have been beneficial too. People were probably going to suspect him right off the bat due to how much of a loner he was...

It wasn't just Rantaro who was the problem. A body had been discovered, yet Ruji and I seemed to be the only ones who cared!

"Let's just check the other cabins really fast, then look at the training center. Then, the lodge," I breathed, shaking the frustration away.

"Sounds smart..." Ruji trailed off. "Want to split up to cover more ground, or-"

"NO!" I responded all too quickly while grasping his arm. I didn't mean to react so suddenly, but the idea of being alone after what we had just seen was too horrifying, too quick. I needed to stay by someone else, even if that someone else was Ruji.

"Okay, I won't leave you," he breathed, seeming to let out a sigh of relief. "Honestly, I don't really want to be alone either... I'm alone a lot. This... this is a nice change..."

I nodded in understanding, even though I couldn't fully relate. While I may not have had a ton of friends back home, I never allowed myself to be truly alone. I always had my parents by my side.

I hoped they were alright.

"Sometimes, we need to be strong," I whispered under my breath while taking his hand. 

I wanted Tora's words to give me strength. They were all that was keeping me from completely breaking down.

Just before we left her body behind, my eye caught sight of a small candle that had been placed next to Tora's body. I could almost swear that it hadn't been there before... it smelled of vanilla.

Maybe I'm just not as observant as I thought.

We followed the trail of blood until it vanished in the bushes. There were no footprints in the dirt, so whoever was leaving was either super light on their feet, or cleaned up after themselves. It was probably the first option, considering the blood. The bloody prints close to my cabin were tennis shoe prints, just slightly smaller than mine.

"I don't think it's you then," I told Ruji while briefly eyeing his heavy-duty boots.

"Did you suspect me?" he questioned, his eyes widening.

"I suspected everyone at least a little... but no, not really," I admitted. "I can't imagine you doing something like that. Well, actually I can't imagine any of us doing something like this... but here we are."

"Here we are..." he repeated, softer.

We both moved forward and checked all the cabins by looking through the windows, starting with the ones closest to mine. They all seemed completely normal.

Until we got to Daiki's and Kichiro's.

Inside the cabin, sitting on top of Daiki's pillow, was a bloody knife, just like the ones that were found outside my cabin.

My heart started to race as I scanned my memories for how many knives Tora brought back to arm our cabin with.

Three. She brought three.

Earlier, two were found outside my cabin. Now, one was missing. Likely with Rantaro. But the third... we never found the third.

The third must have been the one used to slice her throat.

The third must have been this one.

"Daiki?" I whispered, my voice soft. 

Memories of the spy quickly fleeing from the training center whirled up in my mind.

He was so quick to leave. So quick to cover up what he had been practicing. Why? Was that just because of his spy-like instincts, or was it something more?

Was it him?

Was he the one who killed Tora?

As a spy... he probably really needed that wish. I had no idea what his life was like, but if it was anything like the movies, it probably involved a lot of terrible things. 

"Oh my god," Ruji whispered from behind me once his eyes caught sight of the knife as well.

Ding Dong, Bing Bong

Trial time.