Mondo's words made the entire room go silent...
"Toko wasn't the only one who almost killed someone because of her motive..." Mondo added "I failed to kill Chihiro...but I definitely tried to..."
As he followed up with this, the quiet in the room quickly gave way to panic.
"You...YOU WHAT!?" Taka exclaimed.
"Th-That's a joke, right!?" Makoto added.
"I-I can't believe it! I WON'T believe it!" Hiro shrieked.
"Hm...How curious..." Byakuya smirked.
"I see...so you could not have overheard the struggle because you were in a struggle yourself..." Kyoko though aloud.
"M-My Shinigami never told me about this!" Hifumi squealed.
"M-Mondo...!? You tried to-!?" Junko sweated.
Mondo clenched his fist, and grumbled, as everyone's shouts forced the regret of his actions to sink in. The last time in the biker gang leaders life did he ever feel this much pain and sorrow, was when he was on the concrete, his dying brother held in his arms. The voices and shouts in the courtroom were traumatizing.
But then one voice cut through the storm of screams.
"LET HIM TALK!"
Once again, the room entered a state of stunned silence, as everyone turned in the direction of the person who had shouted this. Everyone was surprised to face that direction, and see the short-statured, meek, weak-willed Ultimate Programmer, Chihiro Fujisaki.
"Stop. C-Can't you see you're hurting him?" Chihiro told them "we won't be able to end this debate until you let him explain."
Nobody had any response to this. Everyone was still reeling from the shock that Mondo had attempted a murder, and his "victim" was now coming to his defense. Everyone in the end, quietly decided to follow Chihiro's instruction. All eyes were on the muscular man with the leather jacket, who took another deep breath, before he explained what really happened.
"When I got my blackmail letter...I tried to appear strong for everyone else's sake, but...to be honest, as soon as I read the words that were on it, I immediately considered murder an option...Of course, going through with it was another thing, and I'm not the best thinker, so I went to the changing rooms that night to lift some weights...And it was around that time...Chihiro showed up. You could probably guess how surprised I was when this one girl walked into the men's changing room like it was nobody's business...But that was when...he explained it to me..."
"I...I told Mondo that I was actually a male," Chihiro gripped his shoulder and frowned sadly "I made it clear to everyone else that I wanted to get stronger just so I could have the strength to willingly tell everyone that...and of all the boys to ask for help on the issue, I thought Mondo was my best shot..."
"But that choice...the choice to work up the courage to tell at least me..." Mondo grimaced "almost cost him his life..."
"I don't understand though!" Taka had began crying "we investigated together! We've worked through this trial together! How could there have been any animosity between the two of you merely the previous night!?"
"I think Owada has already made that clear," Byakuya answered for them "he tried to do it because he didn't want anyone to find out...To find out his secret..."
"But what could be so bad that he'd-"
"I killed my brother..." Mondo cut Makoto off. If it weren't for the already stone silence that everyone had agreed to, the courtroom would have likely exploded into confused shouts and screams again, but the silence allowed Mondo to continue "w-well...More specifically, he died in an accident that was my fault...I'll explain the rest later, if we get out of here alive, but...I'd kept that secret from my gang ever since I took over from him. If anyone found out the truth behind Daiya's death, it'd cause the gang to fall apart, and everything we'd worked so hard to build would've collapsed...In the end, Daiya died a coward, who everyone believed got too desperate and drove into traffic...And my lie became the truth...Daiya died, and died in vain, because I was never strong enough. I'm not strong. I've never BEEN strong...!"
The longer Mondo explained, the frailer his large body became. Eventually, as he finished his sentence, he fell to his knees, and laid his head face first upon his podium. A small puddle began to form under his head from his tears, and they dripped onto the floor.
"But when the killing game began, things became clear to me...I must've realized it when I attacked Monokuma and almost got blown up because of it...As strong as I kept telling myself I was, I was really a weakling who could die at any moment..." Mondo forced himself to continue "not only that, but as soon as Monokuma started up with all this shit about revealing the truth behind Daiya's death, this fog of anxiety started swirling round and round in my skull. Th-That ain't ever happened to me before! I was scared and didn't know what to do! A-And the longer it went on, that cloud fucking blew up into a huge fucking ass mountain! And it was then that...Chihiro he..."
Chihiro sadly recalled the events of the previous night.
"But...why?" Mondo asked, still processing all of this "why now? Why are you telling me this all of a sudden? Why tell ME?"
"...Huh? What do you mean?" Chihiro asked.
"Cuz I mean...you've kept that secret all this time, right?" Mondo asked "if anyone found out...you would..."
"You're right...but..." Chihiro sighed sadly, however, she clenched her fists and stared Mondo straight in the eye as she proclaimed...
"...I want to change. I've wrapped myself in lies. I'm weak. I want to destroy that version of me forever!"
Chihiro paused for a moment so Mondo could take her words in, before she continued.
"I have to change. I don't want to be weak anymore...And you're so strong, it can't hurt you, right? Whatever secret Monokuma might tell us, you-"
However...Chihiro suddenly stopped cold in her speech. As she said this last part, she'd smiled at Mondo, to show her eagerness...but the only thing that greeted her...was a face like death...
"So what?" Mondo suddenly said, quietly, yet menacingly "you saying I should just tell you? You saying that if I'm strong, I should be able to tell anyone my secret?"
"Mondo...?" Chihiro called his name quietly, worried for him. However, as she did, the Biker Gang Leader's giant frame began to tremble.
"...Are you making fun of me...?" he asked, his teeth grit very tightly "I'm strong? Are you fucking with me right now...?"
"What? No, of course not...!" Chihiro broke out into a cold sweat "I'm not making fun of you! You really are strong Mondo...!"
However, what Chihiro could never prepare for came next. Mondo began to shake uncontrollably, and grasped his head with his hands, as if he was having a mental breakdown...!
"What did he want me to do...?" he asked; a question Chihiro did not understand, "what was I SUPPOSED to do? Was I just supposed to sit back, let my secret get revealed and ruin everything...?"
"M-Mondo!? Wh...What's wrong?" Chihiro began to tremble herself, as for some reason, Mondo's tone of voice had become threatening to her. The anxiety turned into flat out fear, as Mondo's eyes finally met hers...His eyes, filled with darkness and despair, and unbridled furiosity...
"Why did you have to tell me all that?" he loomed over her "are you trying to rub my failures in my face?"
"I-I just wanted to..." Chihiro stammered "I just really admire you...! I admire your strength!"
Mondo stopped, his frame trembling even more than before. It seemed the more Chihiro spoke, the more enraged he became.
"That's right..." he growled "I AM strong...Strong...I'm strong...! Strong! Strong! Strong! Strong! Strong!"
"Mondo! Stop it! You're scaring me!" Chihiro shrieked, but then, her blood turned cold, when Mondo suddenly reached down, and grabbed the dumbbell that he'd been exercising with...!
"Strong!Strong!Strong!Strong! I'm Stronger than you!
AND STRONGER THAN DAAIIIYAAAAAAAAA!!!!"
"My words..." Chihiro spoke up "I was none the wiser to his situation...They must've hurt him badly..."
"I don't remember much of what happened after that..." Mondo groaned, tears in his eyes "the next thing I knew, I was face to face with him, and right next to his head was a dent in the floor, made from a dumbbell that I was holding..."
"Bro..." Taka sobbed.
"Mondo..." Junko looked similarly depressed at hearing this story.
"I...I almost killed him...I almost killed Chihiro Fujisaki...!" Mondo confessed clear as day "Chihiro came to me to get stronger, but right from the start he was already stronger than I could ever be! I was never strong enough to be able to conquer my own weakness...and because of that...I DID SOMETHING I CAN NEVER ATONE FOR!"
With this defiant roar of pain and agony, Mondo practically smashed his face into his podium and broke down like an innocent child. To see him like this...it hurt. Mondo always seemed...so tough...But he was just a human being at the end of the day; one who shouldered a weakness...a weakness that he kept from everyone else...A weakness that turned him cold blooded.
"Mondo...I..." Chihiro tried to say, but suddenly, he was cut off.
"Are you about finished?"
Mondo raised his head and Chihiro glanced sideways to see who it was that had made this rude remark, and very unsurprisingly, it was Byakuya.
"Chihiro Fujisaki is not dead, Toko Fukawa is," Byakuya said "and thanks to your admission of your actions we can now give our prime suspect an answer of her question..."
Hina said nothing. She just glared at Byakuya with grit teeth.
"My point is, you didn't kill anyone in the end," Byakuya continued "so you have nothing to feel guilty about."
"I TRIED TO KILL SOMEONE TOGAMI!" Mondo roared "AND TOKO'S DEAD BECAUSE OF IT!"
"So maybe you should stop wasting time whining about your dear dead delinquent brother," Byakuya coldly smirked "and start bringing Toko's killer to justice and getting out of here alive, hm?"
"LAY OFF HIM, YOU ASSHOLE!" Taka shouted, surprisingly candid of him "HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT TO HIM!"
"T-Taka..." Mondo whispered in surprise of the rule abiding honor student coming to his defense despite what happened.
"Yeah! Back off already!" Hiro snapped.
"Hiro..."
"An arrogant scoundrel such as yourself has no right to be so cruel...!" even Sakura seemed enraged by Byakuya's words.
"S-Sakura..."
""Wasting time" my ass!" Junko snapped "I don't wanna hear SHIT from the guy who spent 90% of this trial falsely accusing me for no god damn reason!"
"J-Junko..."
"If anything, it's my fault..." Chihiro apologized "I should have been more considerate...I was too short-sighted to realize that I was hurting you..."
"I-It's fine...W-We can talk about this later...Thanks a lot you guys, for understanding I mean." Mondo wiped his eyes with his sleeve, and then turned to face the person to his left "well? Got anything else to say Hina? You said that was your last question, am I right?"
"Nrgh...D-dammit..." Hina clenched her fist, grit her teeth, and shut her eyes, a look of defeat on her face.
"Hina, if you can't properly confess your crime," Chihiro told her "then allow me to go over this whole case from the beginning. Only then can we say for sure we have our answer."
[Closing Argument]
Let's go back to last night, when the crime was actually committed. Last night, when Monokuma provided us with our motive letters, saying that he would reveal the deep, dark secrets that were on them if nobody was murdered within 24 hours, one student in particular, this cases victim, Toko Fukawa, was incredibly freaked out by what she had read. As of such, she decided to form a plan of sorts. Amongst other people who also did the same thing, Toko ignored our self-imposed curfew rule and decided to meet with someone. She chose the pool area, because she thought no one would be there that late at night. She got in contact with someone, and waited for them to show up.
However, what Toko didn't realize, is that people were indeed much closer to the scene than she originally thought. Mondo and I were already at the changing rooms. The men's changing rooms to be more specific. But the question is, how would I, a supposed female, be able to enter the mens room? Simple. Because I am actually a boy, and I was able to use my own E-Handbook to enter the mens changing room. Because Mondo and I were in the changing room together, and no one else passed by us to enter the pool area that night, it means whoever Toko called out must have entered the pool area to meet her via the women's changing room. As of such, we can conclude that the person Toko called out to meet her, was a female. And the person who Toko called, was this incident's culprit.
I imagine Toko's plan was to wait for her target to lower their guard, and then took out a murder weapon from a holster on her leg, that being a sharp pair of scissors. But how and where did Toko get her hands on these scissors? Well, the answer isn't pretty. Scissors are the signature weapon of the homicidal maniac, Genocide Jack, who, in actuality, was Toko's true identity. She had the scissors from the start of the killing game, and only chose to use them now. That secret identity was the reason Toko used the scissors to attack her target.
However, something happened that she couldn't have seen coming. After possibly retreating into the women's changing room, the killer and Toko struggled with each other, both of who received some wounds from the fight. A conclusion was only reached when the killer bashed Toko's head with a dumbbell in the changing room, and when she was knocked unconscious, they finished the job by using Toko's own weapon to slit her throat. Of course, the killer was then presented with a problem. Since they were originally planned to be the victim, their murder was impulsive. Despite this, they still had to set about covering up the scene. In order to disguise the truth of the struggle, the killer grabbed Toko's body and tossed it into the pool. Then, using the fact that it was night to their advantage, and most of us would have been asleep, they managed to get their hands on some high-heeled boots. Using their own blood that had spilled from the wound Toko gave them, they coated the bottom of the boots and created footprints along the side of the pool. The objective was to make it look like Junko, who often wears high-heeled boots, was the perpetrator. They also tossed the scissors into the pool, and washed off the dumbbell and left it to dry, but they likely forgot to put it back where they found it.
This was happening in the room right next door to Mondo and I, however, we did not notice or hear anything, because we were distracted and in a struggle of our own. In a fit of rage, Mondo attempted to kill me using a dumbbell very similar to the one the killer used to knock out Toko, but he ultimately failed. Furthermore, Junko, the one that the killer was attempting to implicate, was meeting up with Monokuma in the gym at the time, and Byakuya witnessed this interaction, granting Junko an alibi that he kept from us in this trial, for an unknown reason. However, thanks to their distinct lack of an alibi, as well as the wound they received from being attacked by Toko, their plan was about to fall apart.
And that's all that happened in this case. With this information, we can say for certain that the only possible killer...is you...!
AOI ASAHINA!
"And that's everything in a nutshell," Chihiro proclaimed confidently "well Hina? Is there anything we haven't accounted for?"
"I...I-I...!" Hina's face was moist with sweat "I-I-I..."
"You what?" Byakuya leered "spit it out woman..."
"I...I DON'T GET WHAT YOU'RE SAYING!" she shrieked suddenly "everything you've said doesn't have to mean anything! I've heard theory after theory about what happened, and you have no proof to back it up! I'm not the killer! I can't be the-"
"STOP LYING TO US!"
It was as if an earthquake had gone off. The entire room shook, and even Monokuma almost fell out of his chair at the shout. It should come as no surprise that the one who actually shouted and caused this tremor, was the giant Sakura Ogami. Rather, it was rather surprising that she was yelling at Hina, who she had always considered a close friend.
"Hina..." Sakura clenched her fist and looked down at her feet "I believed in you...but as much as I want to protect you...I cannot save your life and risk everyone else's..."
"Sakura?" Hina spoke her friends name, but as she did, Sakura composed herself.
"I saw you..." she said "last night, as I was returning to my room, I saw you enter the laundry room...When you left, you were carrying a pair of high heeled boots, and you left the dorm area. All the while, you were clutching your arm...right around where that wound was..."
"And you didn't mention this earlier...why?" Byakuya asked. Sakura shook her head.
"I didn't think much of it at first...but then I heard that high-heeled boots were involved in the murder..." Sakura admitted "I wanted to believe in Hina before I doubted her...but now there's no room for doubt..."
"But if by keeping this information to yourself, we could have cleared Junko of suspicion and gotten out of this trial alive and much more quickly." Kyoko reminded her. Once again, Sakura shook her head, seemingly ashamed of her actions.
"I didn't want Hina to be guilty...But the facts ring true it seems...So I make one final request...before we end this trial for good," the giant girl looked like she was on the verge of tears "Hina...look me in the eyes; the eyes of a woman who trusts you, and tell me the truth. Tell me you aren't the one responsible for the death of Toko Fukawa..."
Sakura was usually so composed and so strong-willed, but now, she looked like she could be broken as easily as ice...Her large body was shaking as she anxiously and tightly clutched her podium, however, her dilating eyes did not look away from Hina's. Hina herself stared back into Sakura's eyes, but then those eyes became sad, and she turned her back.
"I can't do it..." she sighed, her voice cracking slightly, and her body shaking "I can't do it...I can't tell you that Sakura..."
"Why not...?" the Martial Artist inquired.
"Because...Because I..." Hina sobbed "Because I...Because I AM the killer...I killed Toko..."
Sakura grit her teeth and looked down, clenching her shaking fists.
"No..." was all she could say...
"Monokuma?" Byakuya spoke up "the voting if you will?"
"Oh!? Ready to cast the votes are we now!?" Monokuma asked excitedly "very well! You all have a lever in front of you. Use it to make your selection! Oh, just to remind you all...refusing to vote will result in your death, so make triple sure you vote for someone, I wouldn't wanna punish you over something so stupid as that...Who will be chosen as the blackened? Will you make the right choice? Or the dreadfully wrong one?"
The class slowly but surely cast their votes, and after the final vote was sent in, the viewscreens around them displayed what appeared to be a gambling machine with each of their faces on it. The wheels spun before finally landing on Hina's face.
Bright colors and flashing lights only served to emphasize the most important feature. A single prominent word...
"GUILTY"