Chapter 35- Suicide...?

"So, what'd you think, sleuths? Do you send another guilty classmate to their awesomely high-concept death? Or do you blow it and get snuffled out en masse? Well, only one way to find out, am I right?! Let the wild accusations and finger-pointing begin!" Monokuma announced on his throne.

I looked at everyone behind their podiums. The trial just started with Monokuma's announcement and I observed everyone here when it started.

Someone here killed Sakura. That much I knew. I didn't understand why they would kill someone like Sakura though. She was caring and nice and she may have been working with Monokuma, but she didn't have a choice. She did it to protect someone.

And Sakura was selfless from doing an action like that! She didn't deserve to die and yet someone was cold and cruel and killed her themselves.

There was so much evidence I collected during my investigation. Everything that I gathered. Everything that I found during the investigation would have to be used during this trial.

I had to figure out who killed Sakura. That much I promised to do for her.

I promise I'll figure out who killed you, Sakura!

"The killer is Fukawa, Togami, or Hagakure!" Aoi announced as she gave each of those individuals a deadly glare. "They were at the scene! Sakura asked all three of them to meet her in the rec room!"

"Hina, you did say that Sakura invited all three of them... But, I want to hear it from them themselves," I said as I turned my head towards the three individuals. "Did you, or did you not go to see Sakura in the rec room?"

"While it's true enough that she summoned me, I wasn't foolish enough to go," Byakuya replied as he pushed up his glasses. Well, that did sound like Byakuya not to show up to a meeting like that. And I found no evidence that could contradict that statement.

"Y-Yeah! I skipped out, too!" Yasuhiro explained with a nervous look upon his face.

"Hah! Really...? Then I must've seen your clone! Hagakure is guilty as hell!" Toko exclaimed and pointing a violent finger at Yasuhiro.

"Y-You... you saw all of that?!" Yasuhiro asked shocked.

"Oh yeah!" Toko replied.

"Okay, slow down!" I said quickly as I looked at the two confused.

"What exactly happened?" Makoto asked with a furrowed brow.

"Okay, soooo... Ogami wanted to talk to me alone. But... I chickened out when I got to the room, and I hid in a locker instead. And then... he smashed a bottle against her head!" Toko explained to all of us.

"So, that explains the broken bottle I found on the ground. And I suppose the handprint markings inside the locker must have been you then?" I asked Toko.

"Hmph... I suppose you could say that," Toko said as she turned away from me.

"So... you killed my friend!" Aoi yelled over at Yasuhiro.

"Huh?! No way!" Yasuhiro said with an even more scared look upon his face.

"You bastard! I hope you go out screaming! What're we waiting for? Let's put it to a vote!" Aoi said to everyone.

Why was Aoi rushing this? Why did she seem so keen to end this trial and make sure that the killer is found out? Sure, Sakura was the one who died and Aoi was her closest friend, but it seemed odd for Aoi to act like this. She never acted this way towards everyone else's deaths and yet now this sudden behavior came from no where. Again, I couldn't really blame her though. Her closest friend died just last night and she would want to take revenge. But, we had to look at all the evidence before actually deciding.

"I agree! I gave you eyewitness testimony telling you how he murdered her with a blow to the head!" Toko explained to everyone. Toko also seemed to be rushing this trial as well... Which also seemed very odd...

"Wait! We can't end just yet!" I yelled out.

"Why not?! The killer is obviously Hagakure!" Toko said as she glared over at me. "Or could you be the killer yourself!"

"Are you kidding me?! I wasn't even anywhere near the rec room!" I replied. "I just don't think it's the right time to say who the killer was. Especially since there's more to it than just one head wound."

"Yeah! Blondie's right! It couldn't have been me!" Yasuhiro said to everyone. "Come on! You gotta believe me here!"

"Why should we?! I saw you with my very own eyes hit Ogami on the back of the head with that one glass bottle! How can that not prove he was the killer?!" Toko yelled out again.

"I know how! You said he only hit her once... But check it: Ogami's head didn't have only one injury. It had two!" Makoto explained to everyone.

"Woah, seriously... Even I didn't notice that," I said with raised eyebrows.

But, now that I thought about it a bit more. I did think it was weird when observing Sakura's head. Blood was everywhere around her skull except for one area. If it was only one wound, you could only really see a few drips of blood. Not her entire head covered in it.

So, that must prove that their was more than just one head wound... And who could've caused that, I wonder as I looked over at Toko standing nervously. Her hands were shaking like crazy and she didn't stop biting her lip.

"Th-That's not right! 'Cause I... I meant to say he hit her twice," Toko said to everyone with a nervous look on her face.

"Aw! You lying sack of crap! I only hit her once!" Yasuhiro argued with Toko.

"So, you admit you attacked her," Kyoko said calmly.

"Kinda, yeah... I was afraid she was gonna break me like a breadstick! I panicked and clocked her," Yasuhiro explained to everyone.

"Well, I'm glad you admitted to it. It saved a lot of our time with this case," I said with a small smile to Yasuhiro. "But... So, you only hit her once. Which could mean only one thing..." I then turned my gaze over to Toko as she seemed to be shaking like crazy.

"Fukawa, after Hagakure made good his retreat, what did you do then?" Byakuya asked Toko.

Toko then whimpered softly. I could see her teeth biting down onto her lip and her legs shaking like it was the middle of the winter.

"Spare us your stalling!" Byakuya yelled at her.

"Stop! I don't remember what happened, okay?! Once I was sure Hagakure wasn't coming back, I crept out of the locker. And there she was, glaring at me, blood streaming down her face! I couldn't handle it! That's when I passed out next to the magazines!" Toko explained to everyone.

"That also explains how we found that pool of blood next the racks of magazines," I said as I thought about it.

It made more sense when thinking about it. So, Yasuhiro rushed out of the room after hitting Sakura with the glass bottle. Must have been near the magazine rack seeing as the pool of blood was there. Toko was there to witness it and then revealed herself to Sakura after Yasuhiro left... What happened next was the main question.

"You mean to say that you don't remember anything afterwards?" Kyoko asked Toko with a furrowed brow.

"Not a single thing. Try asking her," Toko said.

She then took the end of one of her long braid and raising it to her face. I braced myself when she brushed the edge of her braid against her nose, and then sneezed. And when she sneezed, out came the psychotic side of Toko. The red, murderous, glare in her eyes and her tongue sticking out of her mouth like a lizard's.

"Miss me, bitches?!" She said with laughter filling her voice.

"You weren't summoned for a casual chat. Are you the one who killed Sakura Ogami?" Byakuya asked Sho harshly.

I looked over at Sho. I was ready for an explanation that explained everything that still wasn't connected. The position of the body. The chem lab mess. And the vomit of blood from Sakura's mouth. Sho had to explain all of that to me and the others before we were satisfied.

"So... this might come as a shock to you... but I don't know jack about what Fukawa did or didn't do! Even if I gave a damn, I ain't got access. I'm catching up on my beauty sleep when suddenly, someone's shaking me awake! Maybe it's Prince Charming I think, so I am ready for action! Instead, I get a nightmare-fuel, straight out of an Italian slasher flick! Madam Roid Rage freaked the crap outta me! I hit her with a bottle and GTFO'd! Hey, she finally got hit on!"

Sho's psychotic laughter filled the room after making that offensive joke at the end.

"So... let me get this straight. Fukawa fainted from seeing all that blood, Sho woke up straight after and hit Sakura with another glass bottle before running off," I explained to everyone in the most simplest way out of... whatever Sho just said.

"Hey, Snow White gets it for once! That's right! I hit the giant ogre against the head before skedaddling!" Sho explained to everyone.

I found myself not very satisfied with Sho's explanation. "Are you sure that is everything that happened while there?"

"I'm more than sure! But, at the same time, I don't know shit about what the bum Fukawa did in there before falling right to sleep," Sho explained to everyone.

I bit my lip softly at this. This explanation still didn't explained everything that happened while there. All it told me was that the second wound on Sakura's head was from Sho's attack. But, it didn't explain anything else to me.

What's going on here...?

"Man, what a relief... So glad I'm not Hagakure the Giant-Killer," Yasuhiro said with a sigh of relief.

"Dude, show some respect for the dead!" Makoto scolded Yasuhiro.

"Enough stalling! Let's put it to a vote already! Well? Come on! Let's do this thing! Monokuma! Start the voting!" Aoi yelled over at Monokuma.

"Wait, no!" Me and Makoto both blurted out the same thing at the same time. "We're not done here!"

Me and Makoto shared a look of astonishment to one another before I quickly turned away. It seemed me and Makoto were on the same page then...

"Why not?" Aoi asked both me and Makoto.

"I'm hung up on something Sho said," Makoto explained to Aoi. He then turned to Sho. "When you hit Ogami, where in the room were you? Tell us."

"The same place where Fukawa tagged out! I dropped that beast at the magazine rack!" Sho answered.

"But, that doesn't make much sense," I said to everyone. "We found Sakura sitting in a chair, right? But, Sho attacked Sakura at the magazine rack. Doesn't that sound a little odd to you guys that Sakura suddenly ended up in a chair?"

"Exactly. The body being in the chair doesn't make any sense," Makoto explained to everyone.

So... it seems Sho wasn't the killer either. As I expected. Sho had no say in Sakura's death, but just injured her really badly. The case doesn't end here then. There was way more to it than to what happened while Sho and Yasuhiro were there. Someone else clearly ended up in the rec room as well.

Which one of us it was is the main question though.

"Why, that's rather astute of you. However, there were bloodstains on the floor at the base of the rack," Byakuya explained to everyone. "Put simply... Sho's testimony is corroborated by the evidence. That is where she attacked Ogami."

"Well, I knew already that Sakura was attacked there. Given the evidence I found inside the rec room prices as much," I said to everyone.

"I'm lost. Jeannie Simmons here still did it though, right?" Yasuhiro asked with a furrowed brow and pointing over to a Sho.

"No, you schmuck! Where I walked her and where she landed don't match up! How dumb are you?!" Sho said to Yasuhiro.

"Then two questions remain..." Byakuya said with a small smirk. "Who really killed Ogami? And how did they dispatch such a fierce target? Here's the answer to the latter."

Byakuya then pulled out a small bottle from his pocket. I looked over at it from the other side of the room and saw a sticker on the front of the small bottle. The lazy skull sticker that was attached to the bottle made it easy enough to understand what it was.

"Poison..." I said softly with raised eyebrows.

I knew it! I knew that poison had something to do with this case! I mean, there was evidence of blood coming out of Sakura's mouth. And also in the Monokuma File it stated that she vomited out blood once.

And it would've been difficult to kill someone like Sakura. Knowing her, she wouldn't go down without a fight. So, the killer took the easy and lazy way out, poisoning Sakura for her to die.

"What's that?" Makoto asked with a shocked look on his face.

"A little souvenir from the chem lab. Deadly poison," Byakuya explained while holding the small bottle. "The cabinets hold three things: health supplements, re-agents, and poisonous compounds. Oddly enough, this bottle of poison was tucked in with the vitamins and such. Now why would this bottle be sitting among the health supplements?"

I didn't even notice that the bottle was there before... Maybe if I paid closer attention to what was in the cabinets then to what was laying on the ground, maybe I would've noticed the odd bottle inside the cabinet. But of course Byakuya noticed it. Probably after I left the room.

But, then, Byakuya did something I didn't expect from him...

He lifted the lifted the small bottle above his head, tipped his head back a little so the poison was directly above his mouth, and he drank it down.

I tried to muffle a gasp from this action. Everyone else seemed shocked as well. I would've been lying to say that I was shocked and a little sad when he did this action. Drinking down the poison with a calm expression on his face.

Byakuya then lowered the bottle from his mouth and I could tell immediately that he actually drank some of it.

"The hell're you thinking?!" Makoto said with a shocked look on his face.

"Holy crap! I've hit the jackpot! You're crazier than I am!" Sho said with a heavy blush forming on her face.

I was shocked as well. I couldn't even act calm in this situation. When I moved my gaze over to Monokuma sitting calmly on his throne, I expected him to be more shocked about this. The fact that someone was committing suicide in the trial grounds. In the middle of the trial!

But it suddenly hit me when I looked back over at Byakuya. He was standing perfectly fine and didn't seem to be moved by the poison he gulped down.

"Togami, I'd like to look at that, if you don't mind," Kyoko said to Byakuya.

"Well, then... have a ball," Byakuya said as he threw the small bottle over to Kyoko.

I looked over at Kyoko as she held the bottle in one of her gloves. She held out her other hand and tipped the bottle down onto her hand. I watched as the small powder fell out of the bottle and onto her palm.

"Henka, take some as well," Kyoko said as she passed the bottle over to me.

"Uhhhh... okay..." I said, a little confused as I tipped the bottle into my hand and let the rest of the white powder fall onto my palm.

I took a finger and scooped up some of the powder in my hand. I just hoped that I was right that it wasn't poison as I licked the small power off my finger.

It took me a moment to take in the taste as Kyoko seemed to be doing the same thing as me.

Instead of a disgusting, deadly taste inside my mouth, it tasted more sweet. More flavor and way better than what I imagined poison to taste like.

"Henka, you know what this is as well, correct?" Kyoko said as she looked over at me.

"Yeah... it's protein. I know that taste from anywhere," I explained as I wiped my hands clean.

But that didn't make any sense to me... Why would protein be in a poison container...?

"As I thought..." Kyoko said softly while looking down at the ground.

"Correct. The poison in that bottle was replaced with a mere supplement powder. And wasn't there an empty cup meant for supplement drinks on the crime scene floor?" Byakuya explained to everyone as I too remembered the bottle for the protein on the crime scene floor. "I can't possibly imagine what those two facts might imply."

I thought about it for a second. If the protein was inside this poison container. Then that meant that...

"I get it!" Makoto yelled this out before I had the chance to myself. "The protein's in the poison bottle and the poison went into the cup! It could've been handed to her with a smile and she'd be none the wiser!"

"Clever sleuthing. And seeing as how it's the conclusion I've come to, I'm inclined to say you're right," Byakuya said with a small smile.

So, Sakura was actually poisoned like I thought. And the killer gave to her most likely after the attacks from Yasuhiro and Sho. But... the only other person that could've been was...

No way...

"Now, about those prints in the chem lab," Byakuya explained to everyone, and I knew that he meant the yellow powder scattered all along the floor of the chem lab shelves. Along with the footprints there as well. "If I had to hypothesize, I'd say the killer spilled some of the protein while he was swapping it out for the poison, hence the mess. Looking at them... it's safe to assume they were made with sneakers. To find our murderer, all we have to do is take a jaunt up to the lab for a quick baring of soles."

I felt myself turn pale at this. My voice was completely gone as I tied all the loose ends together. The string of this case and evidence was all tied together by a string and at the end, it led to one person being the culprit.

One specific individual who knew about the meeting. The person who knew that Sakura was going to talk to Yasuhiro and Toko alone. A person that Sakura trusted the most out of everyone else here. Who could easily taken a bottle of poison from the shelves and tricked Sakura into drinking it. And also, their shoes could easily make those prints into the powder...

"It was me..." I heard the familiar voice of Aoi and I didn't even look up from my podium to see her. "The poison... in the protein drink... I did it... I killed Sakura Ogami in cold blood!"

"H-Hina...?" I finally looked up from my podium and over to her.

I saw the looked across her face. The guilt. The tears running down her face. Her lips that were trembling softly. And her shaking body as well. Seeing her there looking like that, it filled me up with a deadly and silent despair.

"Hina... Th-There's no way... There's no way you would've done something... so cold like that to the person you loved the most here..." I said with a soft voice. I was worried if I spoke up any louder, then tears may come out of my eyes.

"Yeah! You and her have been close this whole time!" Makoto said with a shocked look across his face.

"Don't be naive. Dear Asahina played her like a fiddle. Ogami didn't suspect a thing when her bosom friend brought her the fateful protein drink," Byakuya said harshly.

I looked at Aoi in disbelief as tears started coming out of her eyelids. "No... she didn't... We were in the rec room. And Sakura... she asked me if... if I could get her protein for her."

"You could hear the opportunity knocking. And so you switched the bottles," Byakuya explained. "Heh. The devious trap was set. All you had to do was hand her the cup and she would gladly drink it."

"And it worked... And then... after Sakura drank all of the poison, I headed out of the rec room," Aoi explained with tears running down her face.

I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what speech even was to me. All I knew was silence now. A large lump was forming in my throat and threatening to take over my body in sobs.

It took all my strength to keep those cries in. It took all my strength to stay silent like this. To know that my friend. My closest friend here actually killed Sakura in cold blood.

I wanted to scream out why. I wanted to know why she would do something so cruel like that to her friend.

Why would you murder your friend?!

"Asahina, you forgot something..." I heard Makoto's voice suddenly say as I looked over at him. "The barricaded door!"

"W-Wait... I remember now..." I said with a soft voice as I stood up straight. "When trying to get to Sakura, we couldn't even open the door one bit. It was locked. But also, there was a chair guarding it as well. I'm sure there was also a chair keeping the door shut..."

"So, how did you brace the door with it from out in the hall?" Makoto asked Aoi. She stayed silent as this but tears still fell down her face. "If you can't tell us how you did it, then you're not the guilty one!"

"But I am..." Aoi said with a trembling voice.

"Don't be a fool! Asahina confessed to the deed! You would acquit her over an errant chair!" Byakuya yelled over at Makoto and me.

I couldn't help but feel a little hope enter my body. That small feeling inside my heart that tried beating louder with each passing moment.

"Actually, Togami... Me and Henka have some evidence," Kyoko said calmly as she looked over at me. "Don't you remember? Inside the rec room, right under the door..."

I felt as if my breath was lost from the small gasp I made when I realized what Kyoko meant. What piece was missing to the puzzle. "The cup that supposedly held the poison actually had bits of glass underneath it."

"Wait... was that glass from when I broke down the door...?" Makoto asked with his eyebrows raised in shocked.

"Yes. The glass somehow made itself under the cup holding the poison," Kyoko explained to everyone. "The cup was left there from last night when the murdered occurred, but..."

"...The glass was from only a few hours ago!" I explained. "If the glass was broken after the cup was there, then that means the glass should be above the cup, not below it!"

Byakuya looked shocked at this newly found evidence.

"The glass got under the bottle... 'cause it was in the rec room to begin with!" Makoto said. "You see... while we were all looking at Ogami, someone grabbed the bottle off the floor and took it back to the lab. And then later, slipped back into the rec room, and planted the cup like it had been there the whole time; Never even thinking about the glass... All that just to throw us off the trail!"

"Also, there was yellow powder on top of Sakura's shoe as well," I added.

"Yes. The yellow powder spilled all over the floor of the lab was on top of Ogami's feet. She didn't merely walk through the powder once it was on the floor," Kyoko explained to everyone. "Perhaps she was rummaging about for the poison... and knocked over the other bottle in the process."

I then felt myself become stiff as stone from these words. They were the truth but I wish they weren't. Because when I thought about it, that meant that it had to be something else. I knew who the murderer was now. With all the evidence connecting into a certain time of events, it meant that...

"This was a suicide then..." I said while looking at my podium.

Sakura... meant to kill herself... And Aoi tried to blame herself instead to have us all die... But why? Why would Aoi do that?

Everyone fell silent. Everyone seemed completely shocked from the words that came out of my mouth. I was shocked myself from what came out of my mouth. The fact that I now knew the truth and what really happened.

"You have no idea! You're wrong! I murdered her, so find me guilty! It's my fault, Dammit! It was me!" Aoi said while sobbing.

"Hina... we know you're innocent, alright? Please... stop doing this..." I said calmly to Aoi.

"So... now... we're gonna put it to a vote," Makoto said.

I then turned to the lever on my podium and locked in my vote. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that we were actually correct. The fact that Sakura actually committed suicide. She killed herself... But... why...?

"The killer was... Ogami... herself?!" Byakuya said with a shocked voice, his pupils widened as he gripped hold of the wooden podium in front of him in frustration.

"That's right... Hence my warning to you about the weight which emotions carry. And the peril you face by disregarding them," Kyoko explained to Byakuya as I looked over at him calmly. "You see, looking for number one isn't always a person's primary goal. A simple fact that is alien to you. That's why the truth was beyond your grasp."

Byakuya was clearly confused about this then. He didn't understand anything that just happened. The reason being was because he never understood what the value of emotions and relationships were... When I thought that maybe I opened his eyes to a new relationship, broke down his walls and got closer to him... I was clearly wrong.

Someone else's emotions meant nothing to Byakuya Togami.

"Asahina's actions make no sense! Tell us why!" Byakuya yelled out as he pointed a finger at Aoi. "Why'd you take such a pains to hide the cause of death when there's no profit in it?!"

"You wanna know...?!" Aoi said as she reached her hand into her pocket, withdrawing a folded piece of paper out of it. "Fine!"

"What's that?" Makoto asked.

"Sakura wrote it before she died..." Aoi said as I saw tears forming in her eyelids once again.

I then read the letter that Sakura wrote.

Ever since the bear outed me, I see hatred in everyone's eyes. Rather than await my certain death, I choose to die by my own hand.

Aoi the lowered the paper to look at us with silent tears already falling down her eyes. "She felt so guilty for working for whoever's pulling the bear's strings. But she... she thought maybe you guys could find some compassion in your hearts... But I guess the joke was on her. Cause you guys don't have any! You treated her like crap! That's why she did it! I know she looked all tough... But she still had feelings! She just wanted us all to be friends!" Aoi sobbed loudly while clutching tightly onto the paper. "She drank the poison, but you drove her to it! You all murdered her! And you deserve to burn in Hell!"

"Hina... I... I don't know what to say," I said in a soft voice.

I then felt a pant of guilt surge through my body. Me and everyone else drove Sakura to her death then. Because everyone was stupid enough to believe she was really evil and that she was the real villain.

But... was it really my fault then? Could I perhaps do something to prevent this from happening? Anything?

Maybe if I tried hard enough, I could stop Sakura from committing suicide. Maybe if I talked to her more, made her feel more better about the situation she was put in, I could stop it from happening!

And Aoi definitely hated us for it. She loved Sakura with all her heart and I knew that. She would want to avenge Sakura more than anything and would completely abandon our friendship to do it. She wanted to make sure Sakura's death was really avenged.

That's why Aoi did what she did.

"Not to crush this tender moment, but STFU for a sec, yeah? Ogami's real suicide note is..." Monokuma announced as he then pulled out a piece of paper from thin air. "Round the corner!"

Aoi then looked down at the note in her hand with shaking hands. "Then... what's this...?"

"Oh, y'know... A little something-something I whipped up. Listen good! I'm going to read the real note in my best Ogami voice, so hold your butts, y'all!" Monokuma said to us all.

And this time... I read the real note from Sakura... And it was equally as sad and as guilty as the last one felt.

To my dear, dear Asahina... I never wanted to help our captors, but after they took my family's dojo hostage, I had to. But I can't betray my friends any longer. Because that's exactly what they are. My friends. You most of all, Asahina. If I die by my own hand, there will no longer be any reason left for discord. My life is a fair price to pay, if it means the murder will come to an end. I do this for the sake for all of you, whom I consider to be my friends. Forgive me, Asahina. Live through these dark times, all of you. I want you all to survive!

I felt tears start to come to my eyes from that note. I was such a crybaby when it came to any form of writing that could touch my heart...

Well, I was pretty much a crybaby all together, but still! Sakura sacrificed her life so that the argument and everything came to an end. Sho attacking me and Aoi. Me and Byakuya's fight. All of it, she wanted to end it all and she died so she could...

"Sakura... I'm so sorry," I said softly and tried swallowing the large lump in my throat.

Don't cry... don't cry... don't cry...!

She wanted us all to live. And I already made a promise to Chihiro before. But now, as I held the necklace around my neck, I promised that I would get out of this damned killing game for both Chihiro and Sakura's sake!

"You're saying Sakura killed herself... To try and end all of this murder...?" Aoi said with tears falling down her face slowly.

"Might've worked, too, if ya hadn't squandered all that goodwill trying to off everybody. I guess she died for nothing!" Monokuma said to everyone.

"It was not for nothing!" Makoto yelled out.

"Yeah! That message... the dying wish Sakura brought with her to her grave was her belief in us. She believed that we would all survive and work together to defeat you, Monokuma!" I said to Monokuma on his throne.

"What the what?!" Monokuma said in shock.

"Monokuma... your game no longer holds any appeal— so, I quit," Byakuya said simply with his arms crossed. "Don't worry. You'll still get your fit. We'll send someone to the gallows, all right. You don't mind if it's your boss, do you?"

I couldn't help but smile at that sentence. Even though I was supposed to be mad at him at the moment, I couldn't help but feel a little warmth from those words. The fact that Byakuya actually didn't want the killing game to continue actually seemed like a shocking sentence coming out of his mouth.

"I'm out, too... I only played cause he was!" Sho said as she nudged towards Byakuya.

"Well? Still want to tell us Ogami's death served no purpose?" Kyoko said with a small smile towards Monokuma's direction.

"Bah! Screw you guys! It's punishment time!" Monokuma announced and I found myself in confusion. Who would Monokuma punish if no one alive committed a murder...? "You and your Kumbaya talk ain't gonna rain on my parade! We've got a special victim! Let's bring 'em out!"

***************

I was sitting on my bed. My head laid against the headboard and my legs spread out against the messy sheets.

I didn't want to go to sleep. I didn't want to move or do anything really after what just happened.

Alter Ego was just crushed in front of our eyes. Smashed to many bits and pieces until nothing was left. The only lead we had to figuring out the secrets behind the school was now gone.

And how did Monokuma find out about Alter Ego?! Was that even possible for him to do?!

Monokuma meant to crush our hope, but I didn't let it drag me down. Ever since we found out about Sakura's dying wish, it pushed me forward into hope and my promise to get out of this hellscape.

I promised that I would do it, and I was going to keep that promise.

No matter what, I wouldn't give into despair...

Then, a knock at the door interrupted my thoughts.

I looked towards the doorway with a furrowed brow as I got out of my bed. I didn't know what time it was but it had to be late seeing as the trial and investigation took out most of the day. So who was still awake at this hour...?

My question was answered once I opened the door wisely and saw someone standing at my door frame.

"Hina...? Why are you here?" I asked her as she stood in the hallway.

She didn't really answer immediately. I watched silently as she fiddled with her fingers and gazed down at the ground. I could barely see the tears forming in her eyelids and it made me act quickly.

I grabbed Aoi's hand and dragged her into my room. I closed the door behind me quickly and looked at Aoi with a concerned expression.

"Hina... is something wrong?"

"I... I..." I then watched as she sat onto my bed before the tears in her eyes started traveling down her face. "Why did Sakura have to go?!"

She started sobbing and I felt my concern grow for Aoi as I sat next to her. I didn't say a word as I just put an arm around Aoi's shoulder and her head was resting on my shoulder.

"I-It's my fault, isn't it? I couldn't protect Sakura! I couldn't stop her from doing it! If only I was faster and got to her in time, it may not have happened!" Aoi sobbed.

"It's fine, it's fine, it's not your fault. I promise," I said in a hushed voice. "You did nothing wrong, Hina."

"I... I almost killed you! How can you just forgive me so easily?!" Aoi cried. "Why is this happening?!"

I then did the only thing I could think of at the top of my mind. I wrapped my arms around Aoi and brought her into a tight hug. She wrapped her arms around me as well and cried into my shoulder.

I didn't understand why... But I felt tears sprinting to my eyelids as well...

Some sadness that has been bubbling inside of me for so long spilled right out and I ended up crying along with Aoi.

I thought I was crying over the fact that we were stuck inside this school forced to kill each other. Or maybe because Sakura died just hours ago and we felt guilty about. Or maybe even about the fight me and Byakuya had.

But... At the time I didn't realize what it was. I couldn't name this sadness coming back up and spilling out... But I soon, I would remember why I was crying soon enough.

For now...

I was just Haiyū Henka.

A/N: Welp, this chapter was emotional to write. I cried quite a bit when writing it so I hoped you enjoyed me wallowing in despair.