COTE: Last Elite Standing

Episode 8: Conversation with my adversaries..

" All right then," Ryuuen smirks. " How in the hell did you discover our class leaders?"

Before I answered that, I checked Sakayanagi and Ichinose's expressions after hearing Ryuuen's question. Ichinose looks like she's curious about it too, so it's okay to assume that it's one of the question she was going to ask me later on. Sakayanagi's expression still remained the same with a pique of interest within her gaze, it seems like she has an idea of how I did it.

I returned my gaze to Ryuuen.

" Hm, all right. I'll begin with Class A." I start. I honestly didn't want to talk about this, but I doubt they'll leave me alone in the future if I don't own up to my victory as the traitor of Class D- well, Class C now.

" Katsuragi Kohei, a diligent student, and a reliable leader. He seems like the type of guy that can hide his class murderer's identity pretty well but that isn't the case at all. Because Katsuragi WAS the class murderer and he failed to hide his identity from me." As soon as I stated that, Sakayanagi laughs in amusement. So she knew too.

" How?" Ichinose asked.

" During the the third round, as I was roaming around the mall. I overheard a couple of class A students complaining about Katsuragi's methods which was to play defensively throughout and only strike back when it's necessary. The main goal of that strategy, correct if I'm wrong, was to simply gather information in every round and eliminate suspects through voting elimination alone. So their class murderer was not allowed to eliminate students themselves." I looked towards Sakayanagi.

She nods and smiles, " Impressive. You're absolutely correct." She praised.

Ichinose looked astonished while Ryuuen seemed only more interested the further I go on. Well, that's my intention anyways.

" But how did I find out Katsuragi was the murderer? Simple. His own strategy backfired. By playing it safe, he limited his own class's actions and routes to winning the game. In other words, he made it easier for me to narrow down their murderer and with that, I noticed a peculiar detail. Not everyone in Class A was onboard with Katsuragi's plan and Katsuragi himself was also acting pretty strange when I had a rare chance to encounter him in person. Do you three recall the first strategy that all of our classes used during the first round?" I ask them.

They nodded.

" That strategy was pretty boring, though, I'm also quite intrigued by the class murderer who decided to kill one of your classmates." Ryuen chuckles.

I , too, share the same feeling regarding on that topic. However, that's not the main focus of this conversation and even if it was, I wouldn't be talking about it, not even a single word. I believe Kushida when she says that she had no involvement in Ike's murder, but she's still a person I'm wary of.

I continue, " Then you can also recall all of the classes abandoning that same strategy the round after, yes? "

They nodded again.

" Good, because that was the biggest hint for me in suspecting the murderer of Class A to be none other than Katsuragi himself. Because during the following rounds, the few times I see him, he's ALWAYS around someone and he often helps them with their task but he himself does not perform his own tasks. I was a bit muddled regarding his persistence in staying with a partner at first. It didn't make sense since either one of them will make it obvious on who's the murderer but perhaps there was another motive to why Katsuragi kept doing that. He's trying his best to divert the attention he has towards another classmate. " I looked to Ryuuen, " He knew you were watching."