"Sorry, Dawn, we didn't mean to make you do all the work," Tommie mumbled.

Evan tapped his fingers against his wooden podium, his gaze flicking to each of the portraits of their dead classmates. Narwhale, Ash, Amy, Alister... now Stratus. A week ago, he'd been at home with his parents. Now, he was back in the court room, ready to try piecing together what had happened to the Ultimate Scientist.

"It's quite alright. I believe I'll start with my analysis of the crime scene, then," the Ultimate Psychologist began. "One of the first things that should be addressed was the head injury. Based on where the blood was found on the table near the body, it's safe to say that Stratus hit his head with extreme force against the table. The most likely scenario is that someone else pushed him."

"That checks out," Jax agreed. "And the culprit then hung him in order to finish him off?"

"Let's get back to that, because that's the part I still don't understand," Dawn said. "First, it's important to discuss what else was at the crime scene. Briefly touching on the shattered glass, there was a struggle between the culprit and Stratus, but that isn't surprising at all. But even more importantly, there was a bottle of the element Lead on the table where he had hit his head. Upon further investigation, there was also a vial of lead as well, except in a more liquid form."

"So he was trying to poison someone?" Tommie asked.

"Seeing as there was a bottle of arsenic in the cabinet, why didn't he use that instead?" Dawn countered. "Besides, even if he didn't want a more effective poison, why pick something that could potentially be seen beforehand? In other words, why not pick something harder to conceal?"

"Maybe his goal was to frame someone with less experience in chemistry," Jax pointed out. "Because let's face it, none of us really know our periodic tables by heart."

"But if he was trying to frame someone, we all know that if it were one of us, we still would've gone for one of the bottles with a skull on the label," the psychologist countered.

"What was he planning to do with the lead, then?" Tommie asked.

"I'm not sure right now. For the time being, let's continue on to the next piece of evidence. The ropes used to tie him up were from the curtains in the music hall. Someone had cut them- I saw while passing by on my way down here."

"Well, we've all been to the music hall, so we've all seen the curtains. That doesn't give us a better idea of who it is," Jax shrugged.

"Returning to the time of death, it was eight-thirty at night. An hour and a half before night-time officially began. I assume we all, save the culprit, were finishing up with whatever we were doing and preparing to return to our rooms," Dawn added. "I personally did not see anyone, not even Stratus. It's safe to assume that nobody saw anything, or we would already have a better understanding of what may have happened."

"I think we already know what happened, for the most part," Jax objected. "The culprit ended up at the Chem Lab, probably for some poison to use on someone, but Stratus was already there. They took the opportunity to strike and bashed his head against the table. Before Stratus went down, he got into a fight with the culprit, resulting in one of them falling into the cabinet and smashing the glass. After Stratus was either unconscious or dead, the culprit wanted to make sure that they'd finished him off, so they hung him."

"That doesn't explain anything about how my camera ended up there!" Tommie jumped in. "At some point last night, I accidentally left it somewhere, and the culprit probably found it. The problem is, even I don't know where I left it, so there's no telling who saw me leave it."

"You probably left it in the cafeteria, and the culprit decided to put it to some use," Jax said.

"They would've had to come all the way back down after the fight with Stratus, then. Unless their plan all along was to strangle someone with the straps."

"That was Alister, Tommie. Wrong killer."

"That isn't funny!" Tommie spat, glaring at Jax. "Do you think this is a joke?!"

"Easy, now," Dawn said to her, glancing over at Jackie, who had started growling.

"No, I didn't mean to come across like that-" Jax started, but Tommie cut him off.

"People are dead, Jax, and you think it's funny to make fun of it?"

"Hey, Tommie, we're all trying to cope here! Please relax," Dawn said sternly, and the blonde fell quiet. "We can't be arguing right now- we'll get nowhere in this case if we do. In fact, we still haven't the slightest idea about who could've done it. Perhaps we should start with a potential scenario, where the culprit was the one who was thrown into the glass. While there wasn't any blood, it is without a doubt that the culprit would have cuts somewhere on their body. In fact, it would most likely be the upper torso and head area. I believe that if we do a quick check to see if anyone has any injuries on them in any of those spots, we can-"

"No, there's no need for that," Evan suddenly spoke. His gaze dropped to the floor as he turned around and raised his ponytail up to reveal the back of his neck. He knew that the rest of them could see where he'd tried covering up the cuts and scrapes with bandages.

"I... after hearing all that, I just knew that... trying to hide behind what happened was bad," he admitted. "I did it. I killed Stratus."

Jax inhaled sharply. Tommie gaped at him.

"Evan?" It was the first word Tommie had said to him since the music hall incident.

Evan finally found the courage to put on a brave face and look everyone in the eyes. "B-but you have to let me explain, okay?"

He could see in Dawn's expression that she knew that he wouldn't kill in cold blood. She gave him a nod.

"Alright," he said. "Most of that was close to right. I was going to the headmaster's office to look for more clues on what's up with this place, and I saw that the lights were on in the Chem Lab. I peeked inside to see Stratus doing something in there, and it looked like poison. I immediately suspected that he was going to try to kill someone, and figured that if I could knock him out, I could try to prevent the murder and maybe get some answers. So I snuck up behind him, got up on a table for the high ground, and used everything I had to knock his head into the table. I didn't expect him to hit the side like that, and so hard..."

Evan recoiled at the memory as it resurfaced. The sound and sight had been sickening. Still, he owed everyone the truth and had no choice but to continue.

"...He threw me into the cabinets right after that, out of pure reflex, and I think he was going to explain himself, but he went unconscious. I figured that I could just interrogate him in the morning, so I ran to a classroom and grabbed some scissors, ran to the music hall where I knew there would be rope because of the curtains, cut the rope, and then ran back to tie up Stratus. I... I don't remember if he was breathing or not at that point, but I figured I'd leave him there like that."

The silence he received in response made his stomach drop. As an actor, the last thing he ever wanted was silence. But then again, he wasn't done talking.

"When Jax and I walked in there this morning, I figured we'd find Stratus how I left him and we could get him to talk.  I-I was expecting to just see him there on the floor, y'know?  And when I saw the way he was all strung up like that... My reaction there was genuine.  I never could've imagined seeing something like that.  My first thought, of course, was whether I'd done that.  I didn't think I did.  Right?  No, no I didn't.  Hell, I didn't even know Tommie was missing her camera until this morning.  So I swear on my life and my mom and dad's lives, I didn't do that to him.  I... never even meant to kill him." He swallowed the lump in his throat as he finished.  They'd deserved to know.

"So that's it, then.  Stratus was plotting to kill someone and Evan stopped him, unintentionally killing him?" Tommie summarized.

"You know what?  I don't think Stratus was planning to kill one of us," Dawn realized. "Why use lead to poison someone instead of something stronger like arsenic?  It seems like he grabbed the first thing off the shelf that he could.  In fact, he certainly would have put more effort into a murder if he truly wished to commit one.  I have two other things that could support my theory.  The first is that Stratus already lost his one friend in this game, the one person he could trust.  It without a doubt took a toll on him."

"You're not saying..." Tommie trailed off, a shocked look on her face.

Dawn nodded solemnly. "And Ace never specified that we had to kill another person.  Just that someone had to die."

"So that means..." Jax gulped.

"Stratus was trying to off himself, and Evan unintentionally became his murderer," Dawn confirmed.

Evan felt his blood run cold.  By stopping Stratus from committing suicide, he'd still gotten him killed.  What a hero he was.

"Can we get this voting started already?" he asked, not wanting to drag out the last few moments before whatever the hell happened next.

"Evan," Dawn said to him.  She smiled sadly. "I have nothing but respect for you."

"Why?" he asked. "I don't deserve any."

"You didn't mean to kill him.  And you owned up to it, too," she reminded him. "You deserve all the respect."

He stared at her for a moment, then smiled back. "Thanks."

"The vote's up!  Get a move on!" Ace coughed, seemingly offended by this emotional moment.

Evan stared at his name on his screen, and took a deep breath before tapping it.