Chimon

Yuu grits his teeth and clutches his head in his hands with so much force that his arms are quivering. It makes me worry that he's trying to crush his own skull. His breathing is belabored and he looks like he's about to be sick. "Yuu," I reach out, trying to keep my voice calm and steady.

"I CAN'T!" he interrupts. "I... I can't do this anymore! I can't send a best friend to die again," he pleads, voice cracking. "I can't. It hurts too much. I had to kill Sayuri... and I had to kill Bisque... and now you're telling me that Ren and Zu teamed up to betray us, and I have to kill one of them next? I can't believe that..."

I cast a glance at Azumi and Ren themselves. Azumi is clutching at the fabric around her heart, avoiding eye contact, and biting at her lip ever so slightly. Her expression is clearly distressed, and I'm trying to get a read on exactly why. Ren seems like he's actively trying to be much more reticent. All I can read is a grim determination. What is he doing? What are either of them doing?

"I can't believe that..." Yuu repeats once again. And then his eyes open softly. He squints and his eyebrows furrow. Suddenly, he slams a fist on the table, making us all jolt a bit. "FUCK IT. I DON'T BELIEVE IT."

"Hey, are you gonna be okay?" Fujiko asks, alarmed.

"The laddie's gone fully addle again," Wakumi rolls her eyes.

"No, I haven't! I'm very much in control of myself right now," he declares, "and so I'm going to choose, right here and right now, that I'm done!"

"What do you mean? What, are you just gonna not vote? Yuu, you'll fucking die that way!" Gou scolds.

"I won't let that happen! Once we find out who the killer is, I'll fucking go over and push the button myself, Yuu!" I threaten. You. Will. Stay. Alive. You fucker.

"That's not what I mean! What I mean is, I'm going to... take a trust fall here. I know I have literally no logical basis to stand on here, but I don't think it's either of them! That's just what my gut is telling me."

"Aye, I admire yer moxie, but ye can't clear someone based on yer gut instinct, savvy? Just cause yer body don't think they did it doesn't mean ye suddenly got the evidence ye're lookin' fer."

"I... I know. But the thing is, I want... I want to fight for something other than just my own safety, for once in my damn life! I want to fight for someone else! I've been afraid of trusting for such a long time, but I literally lost my damn mind because I wouldn't let myself have faith in other people! If I've learned anything here, it's that never trusting is just as harmful and dangerous as never doubting!" he rants, working himself into a fervor. His eyes are full of clarity and purpose, like this is something he needs to do. "I want to believe in the people who treated Tozen with such love and kindness... and the people who acted the same way to me. They wouldn't try to trick us! They wouldn't try to get us all killed!"

Monterio... are you seeing this, from somewhere? Look at him now. You sacrificed yourself to let this happen. I will do everything in my power to protect what you died for.

It seems like I'm not the only person moved by it all. Azumi's expression becomes even more distraught. She yanks at the fistful of costume that she's holding, and then... "I'm sorry, Ren! I'm so sorry! More than anything, I wanted to deliver you safely home. I wanted to help you honor Nari's wish, and to rescue someone that Tozen deeply cared about, but I cannot continue to deceive everyone. I don't want... to die... and I don't want Yuu to die... I don't want anyone else to die."

I swivel my head to look at Ren immediately. I need to catch his reaction. My speed is rewarded. For the quickest of instances, he bites his nail and draws his eyebrows together in confusion, and then he pulls himself together. "Okay. See, everyone? I did it. I'm the one who—"

"Stop," I command. "I get it now!"

"What do you mean? Have you... had a breakthrough?" Azumi asks. She tries to contain the light that's filling her eyes.

"Hey, Ren," I smile. He gives me a wary, anxious glance. "I understand now. Do you remember... right before the fourth trial... how you told me that you consider yourself weak? And how you're okay with that, because weakness is what inspires us to get help?"

He gives me a hesitant nod. "Yes. I remember that conversation."

"Now's not the time for you to try to be strong, or to try and hide your fears. Let us help you. You and Azumi were both trying to protect each other, cause you each assumed that the other person's the killer, but it doesn't have to be like this. It doesn't have to be 'Azumi lives or the rest of us do.' I won't vote for her, I promise. Cause I don't think she did it. I don't think that reaction she just had was phony. So, please, tell me. You didn't kill Tozen, right?"

His shoulders drop, releasing all their tension, and he lets out a sigh so long that it makes me wonder just how long he's been holding his breath. "Fucking of course I didn't!" he yells. "Azumi, how the fuck could you believe I killed him?! He was one of my favorite people!"

"Well, how in god's name did you come to believe I did it?! I was practically dating him!" she screams in self-defense.

"So that note, the one that says Set up, do you think it goes deeper than we thought?" Gou asks. "We assumed that it meant the traitor's the killer, but maybe they were trying to tell us that all of the evidence pointing to Azumi and Ren was all part of a set-up?"

"I really wanna think that, but we need to see if there's proof!" Fujiko points out.

"H-Hey, how many pills does the Lisinopril bottle come with?" Ren asks.

Wakumi takes it out of her bag and reads the label. "Uhhh... thirty."

"And how many are in there?"

She pours them all out and starts counting one by one. "Shit, forgot you can't multiply. Let me do it, Wakumi," Gou offers.

"NAH NAH NAH!" she objects violently. "I CAN HANDLE IT, YE PICAROON!" She then starts vocally counting them two by two. "Twenty four... twenty six... twenty eight! Twenty eight! Suck it, ye lily-livered WHELPS!"

Ren groans and lets his head fall on the table. "Fucking goddammit. I cannot believe this shitstorm."

"What? What happened?!" Yuu asks, fumbling with his hands.

"So, when you guys theorized that I tampered with evidence... I did. But it wasn't the blade. It was... two pills in a baggie." He pulls a plastic bag out of his pocket and slides it to me. It has a label for Lisinopril on it. "Tozen and I did some medical research after the second trial, so I knew what it was... and I thought Azumi made herself faint to look innocent. But two pills means... none were used."

"REN!" Azumi squeals in alarm.

"I was trying to protect you! I'm sorry! I fucked up!"

Yuu gives a smile, shaky yet relieved. "I knew you didn't do it, Zu."

"But my effrontery nearly got you killed anyway! And none of you deserved the utter buffoonery we caused!"

"I know, I know, and we'll deal with that later, but that's better than murdering the guy you were basically dating. I should've figured you'd try and take the heat for someone else... you did so a long time ago, too."

"So she really did faint just because she was in shock? This is such a train wreck!" Fuji gasps, aghast.

"Okay... Okay, this is fine. This is fine. Now we can work to try and bust this case right open!" Gou, ever the optimistic, declares.

"We've got our work cut out for us," I mumble.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ren

"Ah, shit, I feel kinda sick. That was way too much to try and deal with on my own," I sigh. I'm drenched in sweat and I'm quivering. That was... I feel like I just survived a plane crash. But hardly any relief is coming. Just pure exhaustion.

"We are such complete and utter nincompoops. How close did we come to irreparably ruining everything?" Zu whimpers.

"Argh, save the self-loathin' fer after ye get outta here, ye loons."

"The thing is, we're still not in a very good spot. In fact, even if we're technically closer to the truth, we might be in the worst spot we've ever been in. It's fantastic that now we have Azumi and Ren's complete cooperation, but, if we're saying that all sorts of evidence against them were actually planted, what do we have left?" Chimon sighs.

"We have... black marks on the wall. That does sound pretty hopeless," Gou admits.

"And we don't know the full extent of Monokuma's cooperation. For all we know, he could've fabricated anything he wanted," Gou hisses.

"What... was the purpose of this murder?" Yuu asks. "For Nari, it was a need to escape. For Sayuri, a need to acquire information. For Bisque it was unity, and for me, my own safety. What did Tozen die for?"

"If I may offer a supposition... It might merely be for the sake of starting all of this lunacy up again. We had vowed to live here for the rest of our lives. We had even committed to sleeping in the same bedroom. We went two months without a homicide, and we were cooperating with each other as much as we could possibly hope to. Perhaps the Mastermind was simply... getting worried? Though we are given the option to remain forever, that hardly appears the preferable option, in the eyes of an entertainer."

"That's all probably true, but if that's it, then why was there such a need to hide the truth and plant all that evidence?"

"Maybe the reason was to destroy our trust in each other... if Azumi or Ren were called the traitor and the murderer of Tozen, someone so extremely precious to them, then how could we ever be okay again? We would all..."

"I don't want to ever feel like that again," Yuu shudders. "I don't want ANYONE to feel like that."

"We'll-- We'll figure this out somehow," Gou tries to reassure shakily.

"Um, also, I was kind of thinking, in addition to all of that, if Monokuma got Azumi or Ren wrongfully accused, that would mean the traitor got to survive a murder and possibly do the Mastermind's bidding again. Wouldn't it make sense for the Mastermind to want to keep a person as valuable as the traitor safe?" Chimon chimes in.

"So. We've established that this murder and trial were rigged as fuck and aimed to point at me or Zu. Now. What are we gonna do about it? At this point, it would take some divine inspiration from any angels that fell from Heaven. Fortunately for me, that's you guys. Down for another game of Crazy Ideas? But this time, they're crazy ideas for how we're supposed to crack this case."

"Aye. Let's play, then. Wild Idea Number 1. We gotta figure out what that shit on the wall is. It's the only unused evidence we got."

"It looked and felt like dirt," Fujiko clarifies. "Kind of. But I don't know how dirt would get on a wall."

"What was the general height of the mark?" Zu asks.

"Not super high. Like... hip height? Maybe a teensy bit lower?"

"Mmm. Like someone pressed their shoe against it or something," I say.

Yuu sighs. "Well. I'm sure the answer is 'everyone's', but we could check and see whose shoes have any traces of dirt on them."

Everyone who has shoes forks one over onto the table. "Please, don't judge it. It's... really old, so it's kind of ratty," Chimon requests quietly.

Yuu nods, a sort of soft understanding on his face as he takes and inspects each one. "I won't. But if you want a new pair... or want me to fix it... I can." He sorts the shoes. Mine, Chimon's, Gou's, and Wakumi's are on one side, and Fujiko's and his own on the other. "These two are mostly clean. I don't think they have enough dirt on them to reasonably make obvious marks on the wall, but they clearly weren't scrubbed today or anything suspicious like that. I... hesitate to say it, but I would trust Fujiko."

After hearing this, she quirks her head in confusion. "Hey, Monokuma, I have a question, and it might sound really stupid, but, like, how'd a Monoinu hold Toz down? I get that a Monoinu is kinda heavy cause it's, like, metal and stuff, but it's really short, so, like, Tozen would have a lot of wiggle space, right? I don't know, just, like, how does that even work?"

"Well, my sweet little chickadee, hypothetically, multiple Monoinu would be used, but since they weren't-- GAAK."

"WHAT?! Holy shit, what just happened?!" I gasp.

"Oh my God, I cannot believe that worked!! The Monoinu weren't used to chloroform Tozen! It was actually up to the traitor's physical strength!"

"How did you just do that?!"

"If you're actually dumb, playing dumb is a lot more believable. That, and I used the good ol' element of surprise!" she giggles, twirling a lock of her hair. "Oh, yeah, by the way, that was Wild Idea Number 2.

Monokuma clears his throat, "You all remember the handy dandy time limit, right? You have... let's say ten minutes to figure out the culprit and make your votes."

"Aye! That's fuckin' dirty, ye bilge-suckin' galley slave!" Wakumi's visible red eye flashes with rage.

"Them's the breaks!"

"If the Blackened is someone who's strong enough to overpower Tozen with their own strengths, and Azumi was purposefully made to look wrongfully suspicious, then that leaves..." I point to Wakumi and Gou. They look at each other.

We have to get this, fast.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Azumi

"We need a way to distinguish between the two!" I immediately yell. "Perhaps there are remaining traces of blood on the hems of their pants? Even just the slightest drop?"

Both of them show us their hemlines, and there's none. One of them must have rolled up their pants when committing the crime. And since there was no bloody trail from Tozen's body to the stepladder, I assume that the killer stepped in blood and then crawled on their knees to make the prints on the ladder. Either way, there's no sign anymore.

"Any alibis?" Ren asks.

"Was sleepin' on me cot."

"I was in the racecar."

"Neither of you were with anyone?" They shake their heads.

"Then what about last night, when the ceiling hook was installed?" he continues.

"Library, lookin' at pictures o' ships n' whatnot."

"Swimming."

"Both alone! Damn it!"

"We could... We could, we could..." Chimon fills empty silence, seemingly at a loss.

"We could..." Fujiko tries. Both of them are trembling, as am I. Nobody can come up with any further options.

"Is there... any other thing we could possibly try... other than pray and cast a vote?" I ask, feeling tears start to silently pour from my eyes. After all of the struggle it took to finally get to this point, after the relief and liberation of knowing Ren isn't the culprit, is it really down to a fifty-fifty chance?

"Aye, lassie. Stop the inelegant blubberin'. Weren't ye the one ta say that ye keep standin' up, n' that quittin' would be the worst mistake ye could make?"

"What do you expect from us? We took this as far as we possibly could."

She nods severely. "Ah. Guess I can't really blame ye fer not bein' able ta figure it out, after all the work Monokuma did ta run as big o' a rig as 'e possibly could. Aright. Time ta actually be cooperative fer once. Yer culprit is me." She admits it with her eyes closed and her hands meeting at the back of her neck.

"I-- What? Why are you telling us? You were so close to winning," Ren asks, dumbfounded.

"I didn't want ta fuckin' win, ye moron! That's why I wrote that goddamn note, but Monokuma had ta go n' fuck e'erythin' up!" she snaps. "I wasn't the Traitor the whole way through, I'll have ye know. The Mastermind approached me after I made e'erythin' all dramatic n' picked a fight with ye all. N' I thought I was doin' what had ta be done, but ye... things be different than I thought. I don't really remember who, cause this happened a long time ago, but somebody asked me whether I thought any o' ye could survive this ordeal. I told 'em that there was no choice BUT ta survive, cause ye all got shit ye still gotta do with yer lives. N' knowin' what I do now, I think that's e'en more true than before." She gives a huffy sigh. "I always prided meself on bein' a pretty good first mate-- takin' directions well from me superiors n' whatnot. But... this time, I followed the wrong cap'n. I was confused. I've been confused since before we e'en stepped foot in here. So, listen up n' listen well, mateys! Ye better cause a goddamn mutiny fer me!" She takes a defiant look at Monokuma with a steely, steadfast gaze. "The identity o' the Mastermind's-- GAAAAHK!"

Her hand suddenly flies to her throat, and an enormous spritz of blood makes its way through the cracks in between her fingers. "WAKUMI" we all yell.

In a panic, Gou rushes over to her side. For the first time, she doesn't deny herself the chance for comfort. Unable to speak but still clutching to life, she grabs onto Gou's hand and squeezes it with so much force that it shakes and turns a bit white. "Wakumi, I'm sorry! I'm sorry for never understanding how to give you what you needed!" he screams. She coughs up a mouthful of blood onto the table, but then she gives him a weak smile. "And thank you for saving everyone. I know you said not to thank you for stuff that doesn't take effort, but I'm thanking you now, you fucking bitch!" Her smile grows even as her eyes start to flutter shut. Her teeth are stained with blood. "And I know how much promises mean to you. So I swear, I will end this." The smile disappears, replaced by more of a dutiful resolve. And with those words spent, her body begins to go slack as we all thank her over and over. We're alive. We're alive!

But that's not enough. "MONOKUMA! You broke the rules!" Gou bellows, fury informing his entire body.

"Wha-what? Whatever could you mean, jelly bean?"

"Even if she was the Blackened, you killed her before we voted! No Punishment Time, nothing! So it's not valid as an execution! Even if nobody saw how you did it, we know that was obviously your fault! And that goes against the rules! Monokuma is prohibited from directly committing a murder, and that was murder! I will not let you get away with this! I fucking demand one last class trial, and there, we'll reveal the truth about everything! Behind you, behind Team Danganronpa, behind WDR, and behind this killing game! You will comply!"

"Puhuhu! How interesting! It seems you have me on the ropes! I see, I see, how interesting! I suppose I can indulge you! A story needs its climax, after all! Alrighty! Howzabout this? You will have two more days of normal life here. You can wrap up any loose ends and have all your beloved mushy-gushy conversations! Then, I'll lay out essential evidence and send you on a Scavenger hunt! At the end, we'll do as you said-- have one last trial to end all trials! I'd love to see the despair on your faces when you come to see the truth!"

"We will not give you what you desire from us ever again!" I contradict. "We've had enough of your ridiculous farce, your puppet show! We are alive despite you, and we will continue to fight you!"

He only tilts his head. "We'll see about that!"