He wasn't heartless, he was blunt. In special cases it's better to be emotionless than to cry and wail and... Ugh, it makes Korekiyo shrivel up at how gross that sounds now. How annoying would that be to listen and comfort someone until they stopped? That's why a short and simple

"Ugh."

would work just fine. Rantaro's corpse was on his bed, knife in between his eyes while they were open with the slightest satisfaction within his glossed over pupils. Korekiyo's conscience is telling him to scream, claw at his face, shake the body to see if it's some kind of sick joke but he has rules.

After her death, he adopted her rules for him to use in his everyday life. He wasn't allowed to cry about anything and keep everything he says short and simple.

"How reckless, I had at least some hope in his plan."

The morning announcement rung in his ears, then the body discovery annocment once the others found him staring boringly at his cherished one. He would admit that he did care about Rantaro's well being a lot, he never cared about someone so much after her death. It was pitiful and sad but did Korekiyo scream his lungs out about it?

No.

Did he want to?

Most definitely.

He prepared everything he needed for the trial. Both of their Monopads, documents of their attacks Korekiyo wrote down when he got bored and the copious amount of letters and death threats they got. Korekiyo wasn't completely sure that the pursuer was the mastermind but if the pursuer wanted to kill someone with an unknown talent, there was definitely room for suspicion.

The road to avenging Rantaro was right in this room and he will be as nitpicky and thorough as he can be.

He wouldn't tell anyone else this, obviously.

"The pad says the cause of death was the knife through the head. No duh..."
"Shut it, our lives are on the line you know."

"Meh."

"Korekiyo, may you please present your evidence? Just as a last crutch."

He placed the evidence on his podium.

"Our focus should be on the time, which wasn't speci-"

"Around 9 pm but closer to 9:30."

Korekiyo's voice was firm and direct, it left no room for doubt.

Shuichi nodded

"What was everyone doing during that timeframe."

"Talking with my now deceased friend."

"Bothering Shu-i-chi~! And to be nice, I saw Tsumugs going to the kitchen! Welcome Tsunami!"

Everyone glared at Tsumugi in furious suspicion.

"Just to get a glass of water! I have video proof too!"

Korekiyo already wanted to stop this trial. Her acting skills are both straightforward enough to be just a thick layer of lies but direct enough to be completely serious.

"Video proof?"

"I recorded everything I did with my phone, just in case I was suspected of anything! I even brought the laptop and USB."

"We don't have time for that, we should turn our eyes towards the R&K situation for a second."

Korekiyo sighed. So slow. So lax. So reckless. Korekiyo placed the events of attacks in order melee, indirect and 'Possibly Forged'.

"We have been attacked multiple times in outrageously deadly ways, it takes a creative mind to come up with such comical but brutal methods."

His hands were cold and his voice was mysterious. He was hinting at Tsumugi a little too much, he shook of her glare with ease.

"Kokichi is a viable suspect at this point but I am too..."

He was right, Kokichi could've minipulated Shuichi easliy, all it takes is a cute glare and a weirdly simple request.

"No! You set my bedtime at 7:00 so I couldn't have possibly killed Ran-chan!"

"You're serious, right?"

Korekiyo visibly cringed at how childish he was.

"Shuichi, where were you when the murder happened?"

"Kokichi's room, he wanted me to read him a bedtime story but 1 turned into 500. It doesn't cover my alibi completely but it'll do."

"Actually, I heard slight mumbles coming from the floor when I tripped."

It was good that they were out of the clear for now but it still leaved 2. Being a victim is not a 'Get Out Of Jail Free' card from suspicion. It could very well be the case that Korekiyo is the murderer, after all, he was the closest to Rantaro.

All he had to do was prove his innocence, that's all.

He picked up the shot-put ball from their very first attack, then the axe from the second, the baseball bat from the third...

"These are the weapons used in the melee section of our attacks. One thing to note is that their attacks got more creative as time went on."

Everyone was looking at Tsumugi, all of the evidence said so far pointed to her, but there was a lot to cover.

"... And I'll propose the idea that they are even the mastermind."

"But you said the melee section, doesn't that mean that they used something indirect?"

"They have used a variety of traps to try and kill us. They have written a copious amount of letters to try and lure us in too."

"Can't we just check if they're guilty just by writing out a sentence."

"Forgery Tsumugi... forgery."

"We'll just check if they're trying too hard!"

"I'll bypass that!" Kokichi yelled.

"And we're back to square one."

Tsumugi yawns and her glasses fall off her face, she struggles as she tries and catch them in mid-air.

"The Ultimate Cosplayer could cosplay her writing as someone else's. Is that not true?"

Kokichi proposed an almost outlandish theory, it was worded badly and had no evidence to support something as such. Korekiyo flipped the paper and passed it around.

"Tsumugi, write your name on the paper with the pencil behind your ear and pass it too the others."

Tsumugi jumped when she realized she actually had the pencil behind her ear. She obliged to Korekiyo's orders and passed it back to him.

Shuichi's was straightforward and sharp.

Tsumugi's was curly and elegant

Kokichi's was indescribably bad. It didn't make any effort to line up one word with the next and the letters were crushed together.

The writing on the letters mostly matched Tsumugi's but it was a dangerous guess. It seemed to match all three of them but for suspicion purposes he would mention her first.

"It could fit all three of them but to use Kokichi's theroy could progress us further into the case. We'll use it as a variable for now."

Korekiyo can finally progress

"There has been something that was bothering me, how can the culprit know when to strike every time? We have not told anyone where we were going in any occasion. Unless someone has cameras watching us."

He hinted at the laptop Tsumugi has and possibly her phone. It was strange that her phone hasn't died yet, considering that no one has phone chargers.

"Tsumugi, how hasn't your phone died yet? If you were recording your every move for evidence with your phone, it must've died by now."

"I-I found one... in my room!"

"But everyone else doesn't. According to Monokuma, we all have the same supplies and privileges excluding the one me and Rantaro got."

"And how did you download the evidence onto the USB without a cord?"

A silent 'shoot' was plastered onto her face.

"How do you even have a phone?! All we have are our Monopads."

Tsumugi's glasses slipped off slightly but she pushed them back into place. She wasn't going to be accused so easily.

"Now Tsumugi, I'll ask you the following directly."

She nodded.

"How would you watch someone or in a more direct sense, 'stalk' someone."

"Cameras and maps, it's not like I'll actually do it but being indirect is better, I guess."

"How often would you use your talent?"

"All the time!"

"How clumsy are you?"

"Very!"

Korekiyo nodded, very skeptical on her answers. She didn't stutter or break her peppy attitude but her answers could be used as a variable and he could move on... but what else could he present?

His back went cold, sweat already forming on his forehead.

Rantaro's Monopad

He quickly took out the Monopad to see a map of the entire school, even supposed secret passageways hidden here and there. This would be a viable motive for his death.

"Did you kill him because he had this?"

She swallowed down the malice in her throat and shook her head.

"Is this the motive?"

She shrugged.

"How would I know if I didn't do it?"

This isn't getting him anywhere, he was just debunking Tsumugi's lies and confirming alibis.

"If Rantaro was the Ultimate Surviour, how did he die?"

"This was planned, he told me this."

Small 'Oh's' and gasps were scattered about then disappeared.

"Doesn't that mean this was a collaborative effort?"

"No, the attacks were so relentless that they'll try to kill him at any vulnerable time."

"How about when he's sleeping?"

"I have slight insomnia so it's easy for me to stay awake."

Shuichi nodded and looked down in intense thought.

"Was there something that happened in every attempt that one of us can admit to? Like a place where more attacks happened than others, or maybe they did something every time they'd try to murder you?"

"They would stumble on something as small as a table leg or on carpet."

"Tsumugs just said she was clumsy, right? Case solved! It's her!"

"There is a ton of variables in this case, you can't blame me just yet!"

She was right. They had Kokichi's theory and Tsumugi's answers. There were also some things not fully covered yet.

"We overlooked the map on Rantaro's Monopad and how the pursuer could follow our every move. Let's move to that first."

"You're acting like you're completely innocent, how do we know you didn't murder him?"

"If I was able to protect Rantaro from every attack, I had no intention of killing him in the first place. Besides, if I was with him everyday, that means I had no time to set up every trap even while he was sleeping. I'll keep it brief just so we stay on topic. If you plan to derail the conversation Shirogane, I'll conclude this trial quicker than I intended."

His tone was threatening and empty, he was able to shut her up easily.

"Let's start with my absolutely wonderful theory! What's another way someone could forge handwriting without actually writing?"

Shuichi looked down at his podium in intense thought until Kokichi giggled.

"C'mon! It's not that hard! How can you forge someone's writing without writing?"

"You can either force them to write it for you or someone write it out then print it out for you which keeps the handwriting consistent. If this was the case, this whole thing was a team effort which we already said wasn't."

"Which means my theory checks out~! All we need to know is whose handwriting she's mimicking!"

Monokuma yawned and stretched.

"Y'know what that means~! If you don't hurry up or spice it up, you'll be forced to vote!"

The warning was heeded with great care. Korekiyo doubted that there was any real plot twist for something that should be straightforward so they'll have to pick up the pace.

"Can it be Rantaro's?"

"I haven't seen him write anything since we've came here."

"Can it be yours?"

"My handwriting is noticeably bigger than the notes."

"...maybe a book?"

"...That... could actually be it."

Korekiyo hasn't paid any real mind to actually looking any of the book formats but some of them did contain pages that look like they've been hand-written first before they've been printed out, which means Tsumugi could've copied Monokuma's handwriting.

"Aren't all of the books written by Monokuma? I haven't seen Tsumugi in the library and I've spent most of my time here."

"Whatever~, we'll come back to that later. Even though I solved the second case already, I can't hog all of the fun!"

"How come? We've only touched on that subject briefly."

"Just look!"

There was silence for a solid 3 minutes before Tsumugi tried to catch her falling glasses in midair again before failing.

"Oh how convenient! It seems that we are closer to the end then I thought!"

"B-but you don't know if I was the one who killed him! Remember the 2 blackened rule? I could've been framed!"

"But can you frame the times where you actively tried to kill us?"

"Tch... I guess I can admit to that..."

"But I have a question about your motive. How can it be the Monopad if I didn't know about it before he gave it to me? At this point in the discussion is the appropriate time to apply the mastermind theory, which is ironically not as outlandish as we thought."

"But what solid proof do you have that I am the murderer of Rantaro? What proof do you have that I'm even the mastermind?"

"I'll apply how relentless you were and seeing him sleeping alone was a perfect time to strike. As for the mastermind theory, if you tried to kill him over something that no one even knew existed, you must know more than the rest of us."

"Maybe you should move on to someone else! I'm getting bored already! "

"Uh oh Tsumugo! It sounds like Monokuma's defending you~. "

Tsumugi grunted in frustration and looked away.

"Maybe because you are the mastermind! That's the only explanation why you know Monokuma's handwriting without reading any of the books!"

"..."

"I'm impressed Kokichi, I really thought you were going to mess this up somehow."

"We are here for a good time not a long time but this case we are here for both! Now we can summarize this case!"

"Actually, it's as simple as it sounds. Tsumugi tried to kill him because he had the Monopad. Since she's the mastermind, she had access to a variety of items that she could use. When she didn't find the Monopad, she knew she made a mistake. If I wasn't sleeping that night, this would've gone much quicker but we've managed greatly anyways. Even if some things about this case are unclear, we have uncovered the most important parts."

"Monokuma, we are ready to vote!"

Monokuma was silent as the buttons popped up. The suspense of the vote gathering was unneeded but was still present. 3 tally marks were under Tsumugi's program and one was under Korekiyo's portrait, he was amazed that she was still petty even during death.

"Correct! Sorry Tsumugi but honesty is the best policy!"

She was silent as the metal claw grabbed her by the torso as she shot up into the sky. All three of them
watched from afar as she was suspended by her legs and arms.

A Prick Of A Finger

N

eedles surrounded her in a spherical formation. It didn't take long before the razor thin needles shot through her and retracted at incredible speed

with no real pattern. Tsumugi's face was already a bundle of small holes not even a minute into the execution.

They all stood there as the metal claws released their grips and Tsumugi's bloodied arms and legs fell onto the ground. The mastermind was now dead and they can walk free whenever they please. Shuichi and Kokichi were celebrating while tears of joy ran down their faces.

Korekiyo smiled.

"This is a commendable moment. Freedom and the execution of Rantaro's murderer, what a glorious day."

I'm sorry if the trial was unorganized, this was my first time writing one.