Shuichi Pov

I stood at my podium, holding my beloved's hand. He seemed a lot less nervous than usual. Which is good...and kinda bad. I helped Kokichi create his character, so I knew what kind of a menace his ingame could be. An adorable menace, to be clear. But a menace nonetheless.

He looked at me and smiled sweetly, easing my concerns. 

"Shall we start with the time of death?" Kiibo asked.

I nodded. "The blood consistency leads me to believe it wasn't too long ago; I'd say around 12 to 6 am."

"And we all saw him at dinner." Maki added. 

"I-I have a question..." Kokichi started. "M-Me and Kiibo were the ones t-to find him. But...the body discovery announcement s-sounded when I found K-Kaito...why is that?"

"What do you mean?" Himiko asked.

I started to think. "The body discovery announcement sounds when three people find the body. So Kiibo and Kokichi, by themselves, triggering the announcement...wouldn't make sense."

"Are you...trying to say something?" Maki asked.

"I t-think..." Kokichi paused. "The only possibility is that s-someone other than the culprit knew about t-the body before the announcement sounded."

"A third party..." Kiibo muttered.

No one admitted to it. Everyone looked around, but no one said anything.

"Of course, no one would admit to it." I stated. 

Himiko looked at me, confused. "Nyeh? Why not?" 

"Admitting to it is risky. On one hand, if you were being honest, you'd be completely cleared of suspicion. The only people who would know that you're being honest is yourself, the culprit, and the late Kaito. So if anyone tried to say otherwise, suspicion would fall on them. On the other hand, if you weren't being honest about it, the real third party would want to prove you wrong. For the culprit, claiming to be the third party would be an easy way to trick everyone. That's why doing so would be so suspicious, even if you're being honest."

"Nyeh...I'm still confused..."

"I-I think what Shuichi is trying t-to say is... the most desperate to be cleared o-of suspicion becomes suspicious. There's no w-way to prove that one is t-the third party, so it's an easy way for the c-culprit to clear any suspicion. Because it's s-such an easy way to clear suspicion while also having no way t-to prove it-"

"Claiming to be the third party would be automatically suspicious."

"Amogus." I summed up.

"Pft-" Kokichi covered his laughter.

"Back to the topic of Kaito's time of death...at the time, everyone was sleeping." Kiibo stated. "We have n-no alibis-"

"N-No, that's wrong." Kokichi stated. "Me and Shuichi are e-each other's alibis."

"And were you awake at the time to confirm that Shuichi and you were together?"

I looked over at him. He started...blushing? "W-Well, ah...the t-thing about that is...ah...um..."

Oh. I see what he's doing. I smirked. He's lying for me. If he acts really flustered at that question, everyone will assume that we were awake at the time. He's acting really blushy so they'll assume we were doing something dirty in the middle of the night. 

I leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He blushed even more.

"You weren't...doing anything at the time, right?" Tsumugi asked.

"...Ah...um..." He fumbled with his words, convincing them even further. "T-That's...a good...q-question..."

"A very good question~" I teased.

"But what would they be doing at the middle of the night?" Kiibo wondered.

"We were...eheheh...playing video games. Yeah." I winked at Kokichi, just to sell the lie.

"Y-Yes! That's exactly w-what we were doing. Eheheheh...nothing else..."

Maki sighed. "Kiibo, they were probably fucking." Oh, so she's participating in this lie as well. Nice.

Kiibo stood there for a second, registering the words that came out of Maki's mouth. "Eh? Ehhhh?! T-T-That's so i-inappropriate!"

"What are you talking about, Maki~?" I smirked. "We were obviously playing video games."

"Yes...y-yes..." Kokichi cleared his throat. "V-Video games..."

I leaned in, whispering to him. "Nice play, my dearest~"

"S-Shush..." He muttered.

I chuckled, raising my voice. "No matter what we were doing at the time, even though we were definitely playing video games, we have each other's alibis. "

"Shut up, shut up!" Kokichi whispered to me, furrowing his eyebrows.

"You're so cute when you're embarrassed~"

He pouted, burrowing his face in his hands.

"Putting that...aside..." Maki attempted to change the subject. "The time of death only clears two suspects. We need to talk about something else, since no one else has alibis."

"Yeah. Let's talk about the cause of death!" I smiled. 

"The two wounds on Kaito's body were nonlethal." Kiibo stated. "That's something we all know."

"He also seemed to vomit up blood." Maki added.

"M-Maybe...it's poison?" Kokichi asked.

"I don't think so." Maki replied. "No poison in Shuichi's lab has coughing up blood as a symptom."

"Eh...wasn't Kaito sick?" I asked.

Tsumugi frowned. "...Sick? Since when?"

"You guys didn't notice?" I sighed. "Some friends you are. Kaito was sick since before Angie's death."

Maki frowned. "That was a lie he told to avoid investigating anywhere near the fourth floor."

"Well, yeah. But after that, he avoided exercising. Don't you think that was a little suspicious?"

"So you think Kaito really was sick?" Himiko asked.

"Yeah. Didn't he seem a bit paler the last couple of days?"

Kiibo thought about it. "Now that you mention it..."

"The sickness definitely didn't kill him. But it must have made the poison work faster."

Maki grimaced. "I'm still not convinced."

"Me neither." Himiko added.

Kiibo looked lost. "I think it's possible." 

"M-Me too."

Tsumugi frowned. "I'm not sure he was sick."

"This debate won't go anywhere if we're split down the middle like this." I sighed. 

"Hold it!" Monokuma smiled. "Split? Did you say...split?"

"Yes?"

"Then let's have a scrum debate!"

Monokuma pulled out the scrum debate key and placed it in his control panel. All of the podiums got lifted into the air, and the scrum debate started.

"There's no way Kaito was sick." Himiko stated.

"I-It is possible that Kaito was sick." Kokichi countered.

"He lied about being sick to avoid the fourth floor." Maki said.

"We don't know whether or not he lied." I refuted.

"But he didn't show any symptoms!" Himiko frowned.

"He was much paler and avoided working out." Kiibo interjected. "Those could be symptoms."

Maki glared us down. "He would have told us if he was ill."

"He wouldn't have told us; he didn't want us to be worried about him." I countered.

Tsumugi grimaced. "Kaito wasn't that smart. He would have slipped up."

"He d-didn't need to be smart. He was compassionate, and t-that's what stopped him from spilling." Kokichi replied.

"There's simply no proof that he was sick." Himiko said, refusing to listen.

"The fact that he vomited blood without the help of poison is proof enough." I interjected. 

My side won, so our podiums lowered and we were allowed to continue the debate.