As I walked into the main room with Satchiko by my side, all I could feel was a strong growing fear. Did we have enough time to investigate? Will we get the right person?

The screen was on, displaying Chou as usual. She had a grin on face as she twirled a strand of her platinum hair. "This is super exciting! I can't wait to see if ya get it right!"

"Get to the point, where are we having the trial?" Toki more demanded than asked.

"Feisty, I like it! You're one of my favourite characters, y'know that Jikkō?" Chou giggled. "Okay okay, don't get mad! It's right down here." I assumed she pressed an offscreen button, and the wall below the screen started to move. A large rectangle pressed into the wall before moving to the side, revealing a downward staircase.

"See ya there! If you try to attack me you'll be executed on the spot, just so ya know." Chou quickly said before the screen flicked off.

"I guess we have no choice..." Koichi sighed, looking back at his brother. "How'd you manage to do this?"

Kazuki only shrugged. "I think we were mostly lucky... but Jikkō's really good at this, we should be fine, even if we didn't have much time."

"Let's go then, and figure out how this happened." Itsuki said, standing close to Koichi. "I won't let someone innocent be executed."

"Right. Let's not waste any more time." Toki said, before leading the way downstairs. With a deep breath, I followed her along with the others.

It was dark, cold, and stuffy in the stairwell, the grey growing darker to match the fearful air around us. I tried to think about the case as we approached the trial room, but there really wasn't much I knew. Time... we needed more time!

The stairs ended and opened up to a large round room. The walls were red, along with what appeared to be a throne Chou was sitting on. The throne was included in a circle of stands that reminded me of a courtroom.

"Well c'mon, don't be shy!" Chou said in a teasing tone. "Find the stand with your name on it and we'll start!"

We all listened, searching for our stands. There were sixteen of them, one of which was left empty; Reiko's. I stood in mine, with Willow on my left and Itsuki on my right.

"Okie dokes, let's get this started!" Chou exclaimed.

Toki got straight to the point. "Alright, it was around two thirty in the morning when Reiko died, what time is it now?" She looked to Chou for an answer.

"Two fifty six~" Chou responded. "Still morning."

"So it just happened... that makes things difficult." Toki sighed.

"I heard a loud bang." I spoke up, "That's why I looked outside..."

"Me too!" Kimiko exclaimed. "As soon as I heard it I rushed out... there was a chair on the floor, right? That could've been it."

"We should talk about where the killer even got the chair and rope..." Koichi said. "I haven't seen those before."

"In the storage room, duh." Tomi rolled his eyes. "You really think Chou would expect us to kill without giving us stuff to do it?"

"That's right!" Chou exclaimed. "All your murdery goods are in the storage room."

"So the question is, who went to the storage room yesterday?" Kazuki said, looking around at each person.

I thought for a moment, before a memory emerged and I spoke up. "Uyeda-kun and Nakahara-chan... during our meal, Uyeda-kun came back from there and Nakahara-chan was gonna go."

"Aw, c'mon Kira, I thought we were closer than that~!" Tomi whined with a slight teasing tone. "Are you accusing me?"

"N-no! Of course not, you'd never-" I was cut off by Yukiko before I could finish.

"Gimme a break, you're the most likely one to kill! Shouldn't the ultimate escape artist be better at escaping? You're too fishy!" Yukiko crossed her arms and puffed out her cheeks. "How come no one's been listening to me? How can you not suspect him?"

"But Tomi's cool." Mai tilted her head. "He saved my life once and Willow almost squeezed him to death."

"Mai... quiet..." Willow muttered, her cheeks growing pink.

Toki let out a small sigh. "Tomi's a lot of things, but he's not a killer. Honestly he's a better person than I am..." She spoke the last part more quietly, before looking to the white haired boy. "Why don't you just explain what you were doing?"

"I was doing non-killer stuff." When Toki glared at him, Tomi continued with a sheepish smile. "I was checking the walls."

"The walls?" Koichi asked, looking confused.

Tomi nodded. "Yup! If you can hit a wall hard enough in the right spot, even someone scrawny like me can break through! Most of the time. These walls are made of concrete, not so breakable. I thought it might be different in the storage room so I checked, but nope."

"That seems reasonable..." Itsuki muttered. "But what about Nakahara-san?"

"I was looking for food." Kimiko said, crossing her arms. "But I found nothing... this place is shit."

"But can you prove that's what you were doing?" Katashi asked skeptically. "You probably don't have an alibi since it was nighttime."

"Actually I do!" Kimiko exclaimed with a smile. "Yuki was sleeping with me!"

Yukiko's face went bright red and her blue eyes widened. "K-Kimi! Don't say it like that!"

Satchiko's expression suddenly got serious. "You better not have done anything... Yuki's only fifteen. She's not allowed to do those things."

"The most we did was cuddle, Kobayashi-san! I didn't do anything to your sister!" Kimiko quickly said, looking a little scared.

Satchiko nodded with a small smile. "Good."

"Anyways..." I started, trying to bring the discussion back to the case. "I saw Kobayashi-chan leave Nakahara-chan's room, so she's not lying."

"Then I guess she's clear." Kazuki said with a small sigh. "Now the only suspect we have is Uyeda-kun...."

"U-um... i-if it's okay, I have an idea a-about this..." Nise spoke quietly, and Toki gave her a nod to go on.

Nise took a small breath before speaking again. "W-what if it wasn't a murder... but a suicide?"