We went down the elevator like we always do, but... I honestly had no idea who killed Miu. None of the clues link together.

My trembling hands were suddenly wrapped with someone's small ones. I looked and saw Kokichi smiling at me. "You're smart! You'll figure it out!" I smiled and held his hand. He's right, I can't falter.

We went to our podiums. I looked at all the crossed out pictures around the trial room. It was... something that I never want to see again. I stood at my trial stand next to Himiko and Kokichi as I faced everyone. "This will be the last trial I have to participate in." I muttered. But before the trial started, Kokichi wanted to ask a question. "What happens when people have the same amount of votes?"

"Well, as long as one of them is correct, you're fine." Monokuma said. "Thanks! Now I can enjoy this life-or-death situation!" I already knew that was a lie, but I looked at Kokichi anyway.

He wasn't doing the side glance, but he definitely had a hint of sarcasm in his eyes. I put my hand on Kokichi's shoulder and looked at everyone. "This should be the last trial we participate in, so let's make it count."

Himiko nodded. "That's right! We can't die here!" I let my hand fall from Kokichi's shoulder. "Alright, first we need to-" "Kaito's the culprit!" Kaito looked at Kokichi with wide eyes. "What?! Say that to my face!"

"While we were all logged in, Kaito was logged out alone, right? If you were able to move freely, doesn't that mean that you would be able to commit the murder?" I sighed and put my hand back on Kokichi's shoulder.

"As much as I love it when you actually think rationally, I think it's too early to say Kaito is the culprit." Kokichi pouted. "But Kaito was one of the people who knew about the poison! Wouldn't he be the only one who could've done it? None of us knew because we were in the virtual world."

I thought back to the investigation. "Kokichi, you said that one of the effects of the poison was a burst in one of the veins near the conjunctiva, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, when I checked Miu's body, it showed no signs of her vein bursting, at least none in her eye. Her eyes weren't bloodshot, remember?"

Tsumugi nodded. "Right! Her eyes weren't bloodshot."

"Then what was that poison for?" Kokichi asked. "Probably a diversion so the culprit would think she was killed by the poison." I agreed with Maki. "But, they forgot to read the label."

Himiko put her finger on her cheek. "Then how did she die?" Shuichi and I looked at each other and both of our eyes widened. "The chapel!"

"The killing game simulator was the cause of death." Shuichi explained. "In the virtual world, if your avatar takes any fatal damage, you die from shock."

Gonta looked confused. "Uh... Gonta has question. What is this ver-choo-al world place? What floor is it on?" I tilted my head. "We were there a few hours ago." Kiibo decided to ignore this question. "Well, if she was killed in the virtual world, then we need to figure out what killed her."

Gonta still looked confused, so we all went over what happened. "Alright, now that we've got that settled, let's figure out what exactly killed Miu." Kiibo said. "Alright, so Miu was killed in the virtual world. Let's focus on that first." Kaito said.

"Whatever did that to Miu was dropped right next to her avatar." Himiko continued. "I doubt that. The culprit would've made an effort to hide it." I said. "Maybe she was strangled." Maki suggested.

"Yes, Miu showed signs of suffocation and struggle." Shuichi said. "And the virtual world is connected to our five senses. If her body experienced pain, then she would've experienced it in the virtual world as well."

"The only way she could've been strangled is if she was poisoned or choked. But, we already ruled out the poison. When someone is poisoned, they tend to grab their chest or mouth."

I nodded. "But Miu was holding her throat, as if she were trying to protect her windpipe." Kokichi giggled. "The mind reader and assassin working together. Too bad it was the topic of corpses." I scoffed. "Anyways, how would she be strangled?"

Kiibo looked a bit confused. "Don't we all have the same strength? I think that if the victim were resisting like Miu probably was, it would be difficult to keep them contained long enough for them to run out of breath."

It is definitely hard to run out of air if you were only choked for a few seconds. "They would need a tool." Maki said. "There have been tonnes of cases where a victim was strangled with rope, even though they were stronger than the culprit."

"But I don't remember seeing rope in that world." Himiko recalled.

"So they must've used something else as rope." Kaito concluded. Shuichi and I looked at each other. "The toilet paper near the mansion." Everyone looked confused.

"Wouldn't it be too flimsy for it to be used to strangle someone?" I tilted my head. "Things in the virtual world can't break, remember Gonta?"

Gonta shook his head. Why can't he remember anything?

"But wasn't the toilet paper found near the mansion? How did it get there from the chapel?" Tsumugi asked. "Maybe they tried to hide the evidence." Kaito guessed. Well, they did a poor job of doing so. "If the toilet paper was the murder weapon, then why was the hammer there?" Kokichi asked. "Maybe it was a backup?" Kiibo guessed, but Maki shook her head. "The culprit wasn't the one who brought the hammer."

"Yes... I think it was Miu." Shuichi said. A disturbed expression flashed across my face. I unconsciously grabbing Kokichi's hand. "Was... Miu going to kill Kokichi?" I bit my lip. "Th-that's it, isn't it? She probably asked Kokichi to meet up with her... rather than him asking her. A-and she was going to use the hammer to kill him."

Shuichi nodded. "I think, the poison was so that it made it look like Kokichi was killed in the real world, which is why it was in his seat. She had plenty of time to do it, too. She was the last one to log in, according to the file." Kokichi seemed to already know this. "She put the poison on my seat to make it seem like my murder happened in the real world, when it really happened in the virtual one, and pin the blame on Kaito! That's why she manually logged him out with the telephone."

"She attempted the murder... because she basically had total control." I muttered. "She had control over what we did and didn't know, what happened in the virtual world, and what was in there." Everyone was still talking, but their words were muffled by my thoughts.

What if... Miu had succeeded? I imagined seeing Kokichi's dead body... blood coming from his head from the hammer...

"Hey, Y/N!" I looked up and saw Kokichi waving his hand in front of my face. "You still with us?" I nodded, and looked to the ground again. "Before we do anything, we need to solve the mysteries around Miu's death, right Y/N?" Shuichi said. I nodded silently. "Alright, first we need to find out if Miu went to the roof at all." Shuichi determined.

"Maybe she was waiting for me on the rooftop."

"No, Miu should've been at the chapel. That is where her avatar fell."

"How would she have gotten to the mansion? She knocked down the bridge."

"Wait, but Miu must have gone to the mansion." Shuichi said. "Tsumugi claimed to have seen her through the window." Tsumugi apologised. "I should've said it sooner, but I thought I was mistaken. Looks like I wasn't."

"Then how did she get to the mansion from the chapel?" Kiibo asked. "Maybe it was some special method only she knew." Kaito suggested. It would make sense. She only told us what she wanted us to hear, after all. "So she dropped the bridge to make a huge scene so everyone knew it wasn't there." Kokichi concluded.

"So what secret method did she use?" Maki asked. "Maybe she used some hidden route we don't know about." Kiibo guessed. Shuichi nodded. "I agree. Miu modified the program to add a special wall to the world. We don't know if she added the wall near the chapel, or the wall near the mansion, but we do know that only objects can pass through them."

"But... how does that have anything to do with what we were talking about?" Kaito asked. Shuichi looked at me, most likely wondering why I was so quiet. "O-oh... um, according to Monotaro's findings, Miu made her avatar go under the category of non-human objects, while the rest of us were human." Kaito nodded. "Wait, so that's why she made herself that?" I nodded. "Most likely. I mean, the rest of us weren't able to do that, so I assume so."

"But didn't she say there was nothing past the wall but the end of the world?" Kaito asked. "She probably lied. There would be no point in going if you can't go through to the other side." Maki stated. "I guess a vulgar, fake, and cocky w_o_e would be pretty good at lying, huh?" Kokichi said.

I looked at him and saw him side glancing again, but this time, it wasn't the person he was talking to.

"Don't talk about Mommy like that!" Monotaro snapped. "Besides, there was no hidden route in the simulator!" Monophanie gasped. "Monotaro, you can't give such an important hint!" Kokichi and I smirked. "From the fact that you're treating it so importantly...." "... We can assume it's true." Kokichi and I fist bumped as Monophanie put her paws over her mouth. "Wait, did you guys just finish each other's sentences?" Kaito asked.

"Anyways, if she didn't make herself an object for that reason, then why did she?" Maki wondered. "Well, to figure that out, we'll have to solve all the strange occurrences that happened in the virtual world." Shuichi said. "But, what about the thing that led us to all these strange occurrences?" Tsumugi asked.

"Ah, you mean the loud noise?" I asked. She nodded. "Wait, you guys heard it, too?" Kiibo asked us. "Yes... but how did we hear the same noise? Didn't Kokichi already confirm that sound can't go through the loading point?" I looked at Shuichi. "And didn't you hear Kiibo's voice, too?" He nodded.

"We'll figure that out later. Weren't there other weird things that happened in the virtual world?" Kokichi asked. I nodded and looked at Shuichi. "The sign, remember?" He nodded. "The sign was on the mansion side of the boulder, but the river was flowing the opposite way." Everyone started pitching in their ideas on how the sign got there while I thought, silently. What was it about the program and the objects...?

"Maybe it was the wall that only objects could pass through." I said. "On the map that Monotaro found. There was a wall added by Miu that only objects could pass through." Kaito was still confused. "But how did it end up on the mansion side, then?" Kokichi giggled. "Well, don't we need to forget all common sense? This is the virtual world, after all!"

Hm... I looked up at Shuichi, who had already looked up at me. "Oh, the smart ones are speaking telepathically, now." Kokichi joked. I sighed and looked at the ground again. "Maybe..." I began. "The rivers were connected? Like a loop."

"But how would both walls be able to be passed through? Didn't Miu only set one up?" Maki asked. "Maybe because they're both connected." Shuichi said. "If the rivers are connected and are one river, then the walls must be, too." I nodded. "It's kind of like a world map. It's flat, but you know that the world is connected because you know it's a sphere."

"So, what's the secret behind the virtual world?" Kokichi asked, although I'm positive he already knew. "The world loops." Shuichi and I said, simultaneously. "Oh, so like a video game!" Tsumugi exclaimed. "Like when a character disappears on the left side of the screen, then appears on the right!"

"Wait, but that still doesn't explain why we heard Kiibo's voice." Tsumugi said. "I think that can be solved with this discovery as well." Shuichi said. "You see, we thought that the map looped at the walls, but I think it loops... at the loading point! So, Miu didn't put the wall on the sides, but-"''In the middle." Maki finished.

"That's how you heard my voice from the mansion!" Kiibo said. "The walls don't block sound, only the loading point does." Everyone was thanking Shuichi and I, but I raised my hand to stop them. "You're welcome, but..." "We still haven't found the culprit." And with that, their faces dropped.

It doesn't matter how many little mysteries we solve. If we can't solve the mystery of who the culprit is, we're all done for.

"She had to have been killed on the roof, right?" Maki guessed. "Kokichi told us the roof was locked when he went to meet up with her." "That's probably what happened." Kokichi concluded. "The culprit killed her on the locked roof." Gonta had a sad expression on his face. "Killing game bad. Not Miu. Miu not bad person. Gonta think Miu could be his friend, if things different."

"I think that might've been difficult. Even without this killing game." Himiko said. Maki and Kokichi seemed to agree. "That wouldn't happen." "Nuh-uh. No way, Jose." O-oh, okay. "Anyways, let's continue our discussion." Kiibo said. "If Miu was killed on the roof of the mansion, the culprit must have moved Miu's avatar to the chapel after killing her."

I nodded. "Now we have to figure out how. The bridge was down, and only Miu was an object, so they couldn't have gone through the wall or across the river. At least, they couldn't have gone through the wall... with her." Maki thought for a moment. "Wait, so you're saying the culprit sent Miu through that wall?" I nodded and thought back to the investigation. "Don't we have equal strength? The culprit couldn't have thrown her, right?" Gonta seemed surprised by this. "Wait, but if we have equal strength, Gonta no can protect everyone!" I shook my head. "That's only in the virtual world, Gonta." I assured.

"Maybe it has something to do with the loud sound you heard!" Kokichi said. Wait, he didn't hear it? But we were in the same room. "Because of that sound, you guys went to the side of the chapel, right Kee-boy? If that's where you found her avatar, then I think that sound and the chapel are connected." Kokichi saying rational things can scare me sometimes.

"I think the sound we all heard was Miu hitting the wall." Shuichi said. "The hammer, cellphone, and lattice were there, but they couldn't have made such a loud noise." Himiko mentioned that they felt the impact from inside the chapel. How did it hit the chapel that hard? "Well, the hill the mansion was on was at a pretty steep slope, and the culprit needed force to move the body, right?" I looked at Kokichi. Why has he been acting like he knows everything this whole time?

I thought about what he said, and what was found at the crime scene. "I think Miu was slid off the slope." Shuichi said. "But our avatars can generate friction. That's how we walk. How would she be able to slide down?" Maki asked. "No! Miu did slide down, just like Shumai siad!" Kokichi yelled. Shumai? "Wait... what if they used something as a sled?" I asked. "Like... the lattice, maybe?" I looked at Shuichi, who seemed to agree.

"I noticed the lattice in the storage room, but I didn't know it was taken when I went back to investigate." I said. "It was on the floor, so it wasn't too obvious. But I assume the culprit almost used the rolled up carpet, since it was slightly undone." But... who is the culprit?

"Since we know she was killed on the roof, we can take away some people from the suspect list." Kiibo said. "Anyone who was investigating the chapel couldn't have done it. So it has to be someone investigating the mansion!" I nodded, despite the fact that it makes me a suspect as well. I looked at Shuichi and it seemed like we both thought the same thing: we need to question someone. Someone that we know has no proof that they didn't go on the roof.

Tsumugi was with Shuichi, so it probably wasn't her either. Kaito got logged out before the murder even happened. Despite the fact that it seemed like Kokichi was with me the whole time... I wasn't quite paying attention to him... I looked at Shuichi, and he nodded and turned to Kokichi. "Kokichi, did you lie about something on the roof?"

"Which lie? I lie a lot, you know?" Kokichi said. "We mean the lie about never going to the roof. Didn't you say the roof was locked? If so, how did you know about the brick handrail when you were talking about the roof?" Shuichi asked. I bit my lip. Kokichi wouldn't do this... right? Kokichi's podium went forward to the middle of the circle. I felt like reaching out and pulling him right back, but I knew I couldn't.

"Did you go to the roof or not?" Tsumugi asked. "I-I didn't! I already... I already told you that before!" Kokichi claimed. He was sweating bullets. "K-Kokichi?" But then I remembered what he does when he lies. "Wait, Kokichi, if you didn't go to the roof, when do you remember hearing about the brick handrail?" I asked, in full confidence. He wouldn't do this. I know it.

"Oh! When Himiko said there was a brick handrail, earlier!" He answered. "Himiko didn't say anything like that!" Kaito yelled. Him and Kokichi yelled back and forth, each of them contradicting what the other said. "Liars burn in hell you know?" "Kaito!" I crossed my arms as they continued to debate.

"Well... I went to check on Kokichi, and only Y/N was in the salon." Shuichi said. Wait, but I don't remember hearing the door open, or close. Was that... a lie? "Well then, Kokichi had to be on the roof!" Kaito yelled. "He has to be the culprit!" No, he can't be! "Wait, he did leave the salon!" I blurted out. "It was only for a second... but he said he was supposed to meet up with someone. He didn't say who, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He left for a minute or two, which is when I assume Shuichi came, but came right back." Please believe me, please believe me.

"Oh... well if Y/N said he was in the salon, then he had to be. As much as I hate to say it." Kaito said. I took a shaky breath as we went on to another topic. "Wait, but how do you know he didn't quickly kill her and come back?" Maki asked. Great, I can't lie on this one. I thought back to the investigation. "Well, if he managed to kill Miu, get the lattice, place her on the lattice, and slide her down the slope in a minute, I'd like to know how." I said.

"You've got some balls lying to me, Shuichi. For that, I won't let you do any detective work!" I looked at Kokichi, concerned. "I'm going to confess everything!"

"I came up with the plan after Miu asked me to meet up with her. She asked me pretty eagerly, too. So, I had to pry some information outta her. She gave me the rundown of the virtual world before she told you guys. As I listened, I realized she was planning a murder. On me, no less. When I investigated the virtual world, I realised a person can die from shock. Without a doubt, she used that so she could plan my murder. So that's when I decided to plan my own crime with her plan."

What...?

"I pretended to cooperate with her and lure everyone into the virtual world. That's also why... I worked with Monokuma." He turned to me. "Which I guess is why I found you sleeping in the library."

Wait... the blanket and the pillow... was him?

Monokuma sighed. "I guess the jig is up. Everything he said was true. Kokichi came to me with an idea to make the killing game more interesting. It was such a good idea. I decided to put a motive in the killing game simulator."