"A BODY HAS BEEN DISCOVERED!" Monokuma announced the second we stepped into the hangar, where her body was being suspended by a rope from one of the fumes of one of the tanks. Below her was a singular candle, though the light seemed so dim compared to all the darkness surrounding it. "After a certain amount of time, the class trial will begin!"

Ruji let out a high-pitched scream and clutched Maikeru, hiding behind him. Sora was crying while the rest of us stood back, stunned. 

"I didn't see the last body... so I didn't know just how horrifying it would be," Sora whimpered. "I thought it would be less terrible the second time... but... I can't! We need to leave-"

"No, we have to figure this out," Rantaro breathed. His voice was shaking slightly, but for the most part, he remained calm and composed. "Sora, can you tell us all what you know?"

"I don't know," the pilot whimpered. "L-last night... she left to take her call. I got notified for my call right after. I... I'm sorry, but I was going to take it, but when I got there... she was still in the box, crying. Just seeing her like that... I knew I couldn't take the call, so I comforted her for a few minutes, then left because there were only thirty minutes or so until bedtime. She said she'd head out in a minute. Then... this morning, I went to check on her, but her cabin was empty. And it wasn't like Nori was there to check on her... so I went looking and found her here."

I found myself turning around so I didn't have to look at the body. I checked the monopad, fighting to keep my breathing steady.

"Time of death: 9:50. The body was found in the hangar suspended in the air by a rope. Cause of death: hanging." I read aloud.

"A hanging in the hangar," Ruji whispered, horrified. 

"Are you joking about this?!" Maikeru snapped, rolling his eyes and turning to face the ghostbuster.

"No! No, of course not!" Ruji cried out, holding his hands up. "I just... it's horrible. I don't know why I said that. I promise i-it's not a joke!"

"Enough. We need to focus," Rantaro stated calmly, holding both his hands up. "Daiki is outside with everyone else. I trust him enough to look for anything of use out there. We need to work quickly if we're going to make this work. Sora and I will go back and look through the cabins and training center. You three need to check this area out. At least one of you needs to keep an eye on the body to make sure no one messes with the scene. Got it?"

"Got it," I said. The way he was so quick and organized made me feel like I should have saluted him. 

Rantaro quickly grasped Sora's arm and turned to leave. A part of me thought that he must have planned things this way so Sora wouldn't have to see her body anymore. The pilot was clearly distraught. 

"Okay... let's all look around this room first. I think someone should check the body-"

Ruji visibly squirmed the second I mentioned checking the body. Maikeru seemed to roll his eyes slightly, then raised his hand. "I'll do it, I suppose."

"Good. Thank you," I breathed, grateful that he volunteered so I wouldn't have to. Something about the way she was slowly swinging sent chills down my spine. 

Maikeru walked over to her and stood up on his toes to check on her. Her feet were just a foot above the ground or so. There was a tipped-over chair beneath her as well. 

"Um... there's a note," Maikeru muttered, stepping back and pulling out a piece of paper. "It was in her pocket."

"What does it say?!" Ruji frantically asked, keeping a fist over his mouth as if afraid of vomiting.

"Give me a minute, yeesh," Maikeru breathed while unfolding the paper and reading it over. "It says 'Hi guys. If you're finding this, then I'm really sorry. I just couldn't handle the circumstances. Sometimes, the most logical thing to do is step back and quit before getting too deep. I don't like being a quitter, but sometimes it's the only way. Sincerely, Seiko Okazaki.'"

So... she killed herself?

"It was the phone call," Ruji whispered, horrified. "Yesterday she was talking about how much she needed that phone call. I bet Monokuma messed with her mind and... I don't know, maybe possessed her to do this!"

"Or she made this decision on her own," Maikeru huffed while re-folding the note and putting it in his pocket. "I guess that's it, then."

"Let's not quit just yet," I breathed. "I mean... what if there's something more?"

"What else more could there be?" Ruji asked. "I mean... this all lines up with what Sora said, right? She was crying last night."

"Yeah, but this could all be part of the killer's plan," I pointed out. "We can't be certain until everything is checked. We're going to have to look around."

"Look around? In here?!" Ruji squeaked, hugging himself and shuddering. "But it's so dark... I-I can't stand the dark-"

"Quit whining," Maikeru said while pulling out his flashlight and flicking it on. "Better?"

"Not really," Ruji sniffled. He did seem to relax slightly though, loosening his shoulders as he moved slightly closer to Maikeru. I could understand Ruji wanting to be close to him. After all, Maikeru was tall and strong-looking. Even taller than Ruji. If anyone would be able to protect us, it was probably him.

We started looking around, though the three of us stayed close together. Ruji kept making comments about how the place looked exactly like half of the haunted buildings he had been to in his lifetime, just as Maikeru predicted he would when we went exploring the night before.

"So, ghosts are really real?" Maikeru questioned. Surprisingly, there was no sarcasm in his tone.

"Yeah," Ruji replied shakily. "Trust me, they're real. I've seen them."

"And you just... catch them?"

"I catch them, relocate them, try to send them back to where they belong, talk to them, all kinds of things, I guess..." Ruji muttered, messing with his gloves. "I... it's a complicated business, but I promise it's real."

Maikeru seemed to fall silent for a moment. It was so quiet that all I could hear were our own footsteps.

"Can... you talk to them now?" the security guard asked, seeming to take Ruji's words seriously, which was a shock. I half expected him to hiss and tell Ruji he sounded ridiculous. "Like... if I wanted you to send a message to someone, could you do that?"

"I could send a message, but I doubt the person you would want me to send it to would receive it," Ruji muttered. "Most people who die move on to the other side. We don't have contact with them. Only troubled spirits wander into our world. Why?"

"No reason," Maikeru muttered, his voice growing softer and gentler.

He was disappointed.

"Maikeru... is there someone you'd like to talk to?" Ruji asked. He carefully reached for the security guard's hand.

Maikeru hissed as if he had just been touched by burning water and shied away.

"No, no! It just would be nice to just ask Seiko what happened. She could just tell us if she offed herself or not," Maikeru breathed.

"Oh," Ruji shrugged, placing a hand over his mouth and looking forward. "I suppose that would be smart. Unfortunately... I don't think she's here. Well, technically, that's a good thing, but..."

"Why wouldn't she be here? After all this, I would think she'd be a troubled spirit," I suggested.

"Being murdered like this isn't what makes a troubled spirit," Ruji explained. "It's a combination of lots of things. Loneliness, grief, not knowing they're dead in the first place, revenge, stuff like that. And even then, most spirits with all those things still pass on to the other side. Very few actually become ghosts, thankfully."

"...But how can you really tell?" Maikeru asked after a short pause. "I mean... if you lost someone, how can you tell if they've moved on or not?"

"That's the thing about death," Ruji explained quietly. "You can't. You just... have to trust them, I suppose."

Maikeru seemed disappointed with the answer, but he didn't argue it. 

Things were silent again, until Ruji reached out to Maikeru. Despite pulling away last time, the security guard let him take his hand. He didn't smile, though. 

"Whoever you lost..." Ruji whispered. "Whatever you want to say to them... they know. They already know, Maikeru."

There was another pause, then a small sigh.

"I just... wanted to tell him I miss him," Maikeru whispered. His voice was shaking slightly.

Who?

"He already knows," Ruji promised.

"Does he?"

"He does. Trust me, he knows."

I didn't know what to say. Ruji and Maikeru weren't exactly close, so I didn't expect to become the third wheel like this. It felt wrong for me to say anything. Especially with the deep and personal conversation that had suddenly formed.

Maikeru let out another strained breath, then shook his head and took his hand back, brushing it off on his shirt. "Let's just look for more clues, alright?"

"Oh, okay," Ruji breathed, turning his gaze away. His cheeks were a rose color again as if embarrassed. "Like these?" 

He nodded his head, gesturing to two different sets of dirty footprints.

"Whoa," I gasped, following his gaze. "How long have you known those were there?!"

"A few minutes," Ruji said with a small smile. "But we were talking about something important, so I thought it could wait."

"Seriously?" Maikeru hissed, his angry tone returning. "Dude, nothing is more important than this trial. All our lives are literally on the line!"

"Oh, sorry..." Ruji muttered, his smile fading.

"Don't be," I said while kneeling down and looking at the prints. Maikeru pointed his flashlight at them, making them far easier to see. They faded fairly quickly, but were coming from the back door. It looked like two people walked in, side by side. So someone else must have been with her... Or maybe those were Sora and Rantaro's footprints. They could have been from us last night, too. Only none of us used the back door, so there went that possibility. 

"Why didn't the announcement for the new body play when Sora and Rantaro were here?" Maikeru questioned.

"Huh?" I asked.

"Well, the announcement didn't play until we all got here, right?" Maikeru asked. "Isn't that weird?"

"Not really," Ruji explained. "The announcement doesn't ring until three innocent people discover the body. I think first, Sora discovered it. Then, he went and got Rantaro. That was two. Then, they both came and got us three-"

"What if it was Sora?" I found myself blurting out.

Both Ruji and Maikeru looked down at me as if waiting for an explanation. Honestly, I wasn't sure if I even had one.

"I just... from the way it sounds, he was the last one to see her last night. He also was the first one to find her today. It was like he knew exactly where to look. And his whole story really makes it look like suicide. Maybe he's doing that on purpose. The two of them spent time together in here yesterday, so he probably knew the place well enough to figure out a way to kill her. Then, when he came to get us, he got us as a group. That way, the announcement would ring, even if he WAS guilty. If he only got one of us and was guilty, the announcement wouldn't ring, because two innocent people and one guilty person would be staring at the body. That would make it obvious. Right? Does this make sense, or am I just rambling?"

"It makes sense," Maikeru said, turning his gaze away.

"But... Sora's so... Sora!" Ruji exclaimed. "I mean, I don't know him all that well, but he doesn't feel like the kind of guy who'd do this."

"I don't like thinking this way about him either," I admitted. "But... I didn't think Nori could be a murderer. I didn't think anyone here was capable of that!"

I really didn't like suspecting Sora. Right off the bat, he seemed like a good guy. He was sweet, he tried to be helpful, and there was nothing that made him seem off in any way other than the fact that he researched all of us on the monopad. But in this game, there was no one we could really trust. We were put in a situation where we had to suspect our friends. We had to be suspicious of one another. We couldn't take someone off the suspect list just because we liked them as a person.

"So... suicide and Sora. Those are our two main suspects?" Maikeru asked.

"Yes, I think so..." I breathed. "Obviously, we're going to need to hear more from Rantaro at the trial, as well as anyone else who found anything... but as of right now, I think those are our two best bets. All we have for evidence is the note, the Monokuma File, the footprints, and Sora's story."

"And the body," Ruji added. "I mean, we're not taking the body with us, of course, but there were no other injuries on her. So... she either did this on purpose or was taken completely by surprise."

"These footprints are side by side. If these do belong to her and the killer, then it's clear that she wasn't dragged in here. She came willingly," Maikeru said while gesturing to the floor.

"Yeah..." I hummed while placing a hand over my mouth and squinting at the footprints. One set was fairly large, the other was small.

If only we had time to check everyone's shoes-

Ding dong, bing bong

Ruji flinched yet again, then covered his mouth and started to tremble, muttering to himself. Maikeru and I exchanged slightly worried glances. We didn't have enough time! Sure, I had a few suspects, but there was no way for me to confirm anything yet!

"We're going to die," Ruji whispered, covering his ears with his hands. "We're going to die, we're going to die, we're going to die. I-it's going to be so dark and-"

"Here," Maikeru said, taking his flashlight and placing it in Ruji's hands. He reached out and helped the ghostbuster close his fingers around the small object. 

Ruji stilled, then looked up at him, still trembling. 

"Just stop freaking out and hold onto that for me," Maikeru said. His tone was still harsh, but there was almost a light joking feel to it. "To keep the darkness away during the trial. Okay?"