At hearing the announcement, I quickly jumped up from my bed, rushing out of the room. On my way I bumped into Nise, who let out a squeak, looking terrified. Her expression calmed when her gold flecked gaze met mine, yet she still held an air of panic.

"D-do you know who...?" Nise didn't need to finish her question for me to know what she meant.

I shook my head. "No... let's find the others."

She agreed, and together we continued wandering down the hallway, ending up in the main room. There we saw Toki, a frown on her face as she met my gaze. "Library." She simply stated, looking a little distant.

I nodded and took Nise's hand, more for my own comfort than anything, and walked into the new area with her. I felt increasingly nervous as we came closer to the said room, but knowing we'd have to investigate the crime scene either way, I took the first step in.

The young man lay on his stomach on the ground near the back of the room, resting there with his pale blue hair fanned out over the floor, glasses still over his thankfully closed eyes. Like Reiko's body, there was no blood, and if the dreaded announcement hadn't been made I could've thought he was only asleep. There was no use hoping for that to be true.

This was the corpse of Mitsuo Itami.

Satchiko kneeled by Mitsuo's body, quietly shedding tears as she muttered to herself. Katashi was beside her, an arm around her shoulders as he too looked distraught by this death. Mai and Willow were looking on from a distance, the former soccer player clinging to the dirty blonde. Kazuki and Aimi stood together at the farthest wall from the body, and soon Toki and Tomi entered the room together.

I didn't notice I was squeezing Nise's hand until she squeezed back, and I gave the slightly shorter girl a halfhearted smile.

"Looks like everyone has arrived~!" Chou exclaimed from the speakers. "Well, besides the sad homosexual but who cares about him? Someone decided to kill off a Hope's Peak teacher and that's oddly satisfying. Good work, killer."

"Hey crazy, you gonna give us the information we need or what?" Tomi asked, and Toki nodded in agreement.

"Yeah yeah, it's in the dining room." Chou responded, "Just be a little more thorough with your investigating, we wouldn't want another incident like last time~." She giggled, and was probably lucky she wasn't physically in the room from the look Kazuki had.

"I plan on discovering the killer before ever entering that trial room, so don't worry about that." Toki spoke strongly, and I felt she was saying it more for us than for the mastermind. "I won't let someone innocent be executed again."

Chou snickered. "Don't you get so cocky little miss badass, I wouldn't be so sure about that~." She paused. "Well then, get to work! I'll see you all at the class trial!"

Everything went silent, until Aimi took a step forward. "Well, what're we waiting for? You heard her, let's get to work!"

I let go of Nise's hand and watched as the group split up. Toki went right to the corpse, Kazuki joining her. Willow, Mai, Satchiko, and Katashi left the room, Tomi, Aimi, Nise and I staying behind. The other three started looking around the room for clues, while I decided to approach the body.

"Finding anything?" I asked the two there as I crouched with them.

"No... there's nothing." Kazuki said with a frown. "I can't see anything wrong with him, there should be some sign of how he died..."

"Don't be stupid, Kazuki. You know we never have all the answers right away." Toki replied, then flipped Mitsuo's body over so that he was now laying on his back. "Maybe it's not his body that'll solve this."

"Yeah, you're right." Kazuki said with a small nod. "We can't lose hope."

"Is there anything I could do to help?" I asked, starting to feel a little awkward that I wasn't doing anything.

Toki glanced over at me, adjusting her eyepatch. "Check the weapon room. If anything seems to be missing, let me know."

"Alright!" I nodded before standing up. I headed towards the door, but before I could leave I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I turned around to face Tomi, whose face held a small smile. "I'm comin' with you, 'kay Kira?"

"Yeah... okay..." I muttered, and walked out into the hallway with Tomi.

When we entered the weapon room, everything seemed to be in place. Although this was only at a glance, so I carefully looked around for anything that might be missing.

Tomi walked over to the one empty wall, and I was immediately confused at this. "Uyeda-kun, what're you doing?"

He looked back at me with a slight smirk. "Oh, you didn't know about this?" He pressed his hand against the wall, and to my surprise, a square around his hand sunk in. Below that, a larger rectangle sunk into the grey wall as well, and slid aside to reveal many assorted bottles. "Chou really has a thing for secret passageways."

"How'd you find this?" I asked, walking over to him and peering into the newly revealed space.

Tomi only shrugged. "It was an accident, but it's pretty cool. Those are all kinds of poisons."

"Poison, huh..." Looking at all the bottles, the labels did wear the familiar warnings. I pointed to a small glass one of yellow liquid. "That one looks half empty."

"It's half full, don't be so negative." Tomi joked, then looked at the bottle. "Yep, definitely wasn't like that when I saw it last."

"Let's tell Abukara-san..." I said, and started to walk away until I felt him grab my hand. My face immediately heated up at the contact and I didn't look back at him in fear of him noticing.

"Nah, she can find out at the trial. Let's do some investigating on our own!" Tomi said, "Let's go to the dining room!"

"O-okay..." I stuttered, and Tomi laughed a bit.

He walked in front of me and came pretty close with a playful smirk. "Aw, is Kira getting flustered~? Well, I am pretty hard to resist."

I looked away as I was sure my cheeks grew even more red. "A-aren't we supposed to be investigating?"

"Hm, yeah, I guess I can tease you later." Tomi led the way out of the room, still holding my hand.

We soon arrived at the dining room, and saw that Satchiko was there as well. Tomi released my hand to pick up one of the files Chou had left, and I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed at the loss of contact.

Pushing aside the thought, I opened a file as well, reading what was inside.

Victim: Mitsuo Itami
Time of death: 12:46am
No visible wounds or bruises.

Obviously there wasn't a lot of information here, but the time of death could be important. I looked up at Satchiko, who was wiping her face. She didn't seem to be taking this well.

"Kobayashi-chan... are you okay?" I asked, "Were you... close to him?"

Satchiko nodded a bit. "Y-yeah... he was a great teacher... h-he didn't deserve this at all. H-he visited me a lot w-when I was worse, too..." She bit her lip. "I hope we can find w-who did this..."

Before I could respond, the speakers turned on once again. "It's time for the class trial, so get on down here!"