---

4:30 does seem to be the magic time, doesn’t it. Thomas thought to himself, mulling over what Faith had just said. Although, there was a particular question gnawing at the back of his mind. If 4:30 was the threshold for where they knew Mercy was, and she was infected by her hand, that would mean that someone would have to have used something sharp to pierce her hand in between that time. If Daimyon and Bliss were working in the kitchen, where the knives were, that might make them a prime suspect but…

The theory was so absurd, it might just work. ”Hey. Infinite Archer, where were you before the party?”

Zachary almost seemed startled by the sudden question. Aside from offering a few words, he’d been rather quiet during all the random ‘conclusions’ people were reaching. He never considered himself a brilliant man, so trying to piece together the puzzle of this case while the courtroom could be likened to some sort of jester’s festival was basically impossible. Adding something randomly could only make the situation worse. But if somebody asked him directly, the ideal thing to do would be to answer as clearly and truthfully as he could.

“If you are referring to just before the party at around 4:30, I was in the dojo with Jezebel.” he answered calmly. “I wanted to gauge just how badly this injury of mine would affect my performance with a bow, and if it was going to cause issues later on...” his tone softened at the end, hinting that the results weren’t to his liking.

Thomas narrowed his eyes. For some reason, when he did this, he looked less critical and instead looked silly. Whatever the intended effect of narrowing his eyes was, he had clearly missed his mark. ”That will be all.”

As it turned out, Thomas had been following a dead end.

“I wish I could be of more help,” Zachary sighed, frustrated. All of this questioning and he could give no answers or meaningful input. It stunk.“I regret not taking the chance to speak to her earlier today when I had the chance.”

Sure that his musing went unheard, Zach silently faced a heated Faith. The courtroom was still as lively as it was five minutes ago. He attempted to keep up with what the others were getting at, but really, there was nothing he could do. Did it even matter if he was here? His life was on the line, but what positive contribution had he made towards the discussion? None. And that ate at him because he understood that more than just his life was at stake.

Holy shit what a productive post Boss do you still love us? <3

You massive THOTS a monkey could do your jobs better than you what is this even

Felix revealed that he had moved a box of books from the study into Mercy's possession. That would certainly explain how that particular book ended up in the chemistry lab. ”Even if you were the one who moved it to the chemistry lab, that doesn't necessarily mean you were the only one who knew about it. Anyone who entered the study could have looked into that box.” Lucy looked at everyone. ”Well? Who else was there?”

Caora nodded. ”Bliss was reading to me, so we were looking for books. ”

Jezebel rolled her eyes, but was smiling.
Like, You, Zachary,Thomas, Braiden and myself were in and out of there a lot over the past few days. We even had breakfast this morning together. ”

Lucy continued to write. ”Calvin” She spoke without looking at him. ”I understand you enjoy playing house with Ice and Alice, but we are doing an investigation now. Why were you in the study today?”

Bliss cleared her throat. ”I went to the pharmacy to get some medicine for Caora. I saw him on the beach and he was running a fever. It was bothering him, so I got him some aspirin, that's all.”

Ice had come forth about visiting the pharmacy, but didn't say what he took. And of course, Noel, Thomas, and Denis were also in the pharmacy. While Cyrus didn't say he was in the pharmacy, he did admit he had access. Lucy wrote down each name.

Unfortunately, there was little else to gain from this round of debate. Calvin, Ice, and Alice all squabbled over details about the bandage. Such outbursts were understandable in a high stress environment, but unhelpful nonetheless. Lucy just did her best to smile. ”At this point, I don't think it's possible to say exactly when she bandaged herself.” Lucy put her hands on her hips, but still kept a good hold on her pen. ”It's okay, I can solve this case without knowing exactly when the bandages appeared. Inspector Lucy never fails a case! Fwahwahwha!”

...And then Faith started speaking, which Lucy mostly ignored. But Daimyon and Faith were both directing their questions at Bliss, who was compelled to answer. ”I never said I was sick!” Bliss brought her arm up in front of herself, as if to defend herself from a pack of dogs. ”I was just feeling weak. It's been stressful, and I haven't been sleeping much. So I went to my room to take a nap so that I was fresh for the concert. I didn't see anyone!”

Lucy looked at her notes. So far they had a...

-List of people who saw mercy at about the same time she could have been poisoned with Mundinol.

-List of people who had access to the pharmacy.

-List of people who had been to the study.

”It's not enough.” Lucy said more to herself than anyone in particular. They needed more ways to nail the killer. ”Does anyone else have any leads?”

”I might.” Jezebel was holding the badge in her hand. ”So like, I was examining this thing, trying to figure out why Mercy had it? And then like, the lights cut out?” She pointed at the badge. ”The tip glows.”

Lucy's eyes shot open. ”The tip of the badge has Mundinol on it?”

”And blood too at some point.” Jezebel winked at the politician. ”You totally had the right idea, just the wrong piece of evidence.”

”This could be important...” Lucy wasn't sure if this alone would help point to the killer, but it sounded important. It had to help, right? ”Max, you said this was your badge, right? You also said that that you thought it disappeared while you were setting up the party.” Lucy gave the police officer a sideways glance and picked up her notepad. ”Did you encounter anyone while you were setting up?”

”He encountered me!” Jezebel said with pride in her voice. ”Had to let the noid know his knife throw was tre ass.”

---

Max’s face visibly contorted at Jezebel’s words. “God, how could I be such an idiot. So we can assume that the puncture wound on Mercy’s hand came from the mundinol-poisoned tip of my badge…shit.” A face palm was the last of the mental punishment that Max would receive for he was now focusing solely on the trial.

“Yes Lucy, I encountered a number of people; though forgive me for not remembering the exact times.” He looked upon Thomas. “I was working with Felix and Faith for the entire time while setting up the party, but soon after I had, Thomas showed up to have a…discussion about the last Night of Carnage, which Cyrus joined for a bit as well.” After giving a slightly annoyed glance towards the two he moved his eyes to Alice and Ice. “shortly after, Alice came to me, looking for Ice; I didn’t know where he would be so I turned her away.” Lastly, his eyes settled on Noel. “Jezebel showed up too for, you know. But the last people I’ve seen were Noel, and Denis, who just wanted to talk.”

Max scratched the back of his head, trying to remember anything that might help, but faced Lucy with a puzzled face. “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember any of them acting strange.”

Lucy was able to writeone more list for her collection. But still, she didn't feel like she was any closer to catching the killer. ”Hmm...” Lucy scratched her chin. There was something they were looking over with these lists. Something that didn't quite add up. And lucy Fairglave was going to find out what it was.

”So...” Jezebel raised an eyebrow. ”Are we going to like, talk about the mask now?”

”Wha?” Bliss raised a finger to her lips. ”The mask?”

”The killer totally needed it, right?” Jezebel folded her arms. ”Weren't we like, going with the idea that betty got gassed?”

“So the killer needed to get the mask on Mercy!” Emily leaned forward and placed her hands on the podium befor her. But this required her to ram her arms into her breasts, which were wider than her chest was. “Did anyone spot Mercy today? We need to form a timeline of where she's been.”

“Besides getting the books for her, I didn’t see Mercy anywhere but at the party...though while we were there, I did notice she was a bit off. No doubt others have noticed how she bumped into the table, and was generally a bit clumsy that night.”

Thomas perked up after Felix spoke. ”And likewise, when I saw Mercy at the party, I can corroborate that her movements were indeed sluggish.”

Thomas looked around. ”Now that we’re on the topic, I did see Mercy earlier today. At about, uh, four thirty? There wasn’t anything wrong with her movement then. As a matter of fact, jack, she strode remarkably well. Not like I was paying particular attention to that…” Thomas looked at Denis. ”...as I found myself on the wrong side of a pickup line.” He then turned to Max.

”Although, this is a little disappointing, Police Officer” The corners of Thomas’s mouth twitched, but he managed to maintain a neutral expression. ”I had hoped to hold onto this information for a while longer. It was delightful to watch as you scrambled to cover your tracks. Unfortunately for me, and fortunately for you, I believe this may exonerate you for the time being. Admittedly, only if you or your friend” — Thomas turned to Faith, and back to max. — ”can put together enough brain cells to figure out why.”

what is a brain cell btw bc i clearly do not have any

Bliss seemed to be a dead end, which was almost a relief to Daimyon. He really did not want the caring, protective nanny with whom even cooking was—relatively—enjoyable to be guilty. Personal feelings aside, it also meant that they were unfortunately no closer to the truth than before. The poet racked his brain, but he knew it would not serve with much useful information. Instead, he tried digging into his notebook, looking for something, anything at all that would help them further this case. All the while, a series of negative thoughts clouded his concentration: his usefulness during trials was situational at best—he knew from his notes that he was not particularly effective in previous cases, either—and if he could not even keep murders from occurring again, then what was he good for? The Infinites counted among themselves a politician, a police officer and a metal worker among the people whose talents were instrumental in the group's survival. Others, like Mercy herself, fit the same role before their lives were robbed from them. What could he, the Infinite Poet, say about himself?

He felt like he was just tagging along for the ride while more deserving people died around him. And it made him feel very guilty.

Shrugging these nagging thoughts off, he found a short diary-like portion in his notebook where he described the events leading up to the party. He had written that the cooking had been done ‘after four hours of, hopefully rewarding, toil and sweat’ and that the organisers, including him, had gone out to invite the rest of the Infinites shortly after. Knowing that he had started cooking about an hour after his own lunch at noon, that placed the invitation period after 5 pm. He remembered having a lengthy discussion about the equipment just before, so that placed the exact time at the 5:30-5:45 mark. That was when he, along with Krista, Felix and Faith, visited everyone to bring them along for the party.

As he was ordering the timeline in his head, the topic of contention turned back to Mercy. Thomas mentioned seeing her, apparently fine, at 4:30 and Felix mentioned that her movement was off at the party, which had been long planned to start at 7 pm. Thinking back, Daimyon could also support the free runner's claim...

“Aside from her clumsiness, I believe she was also more...conversational than usual at our table,” he said, following up on Felix. “Admittedly I did not know her too well, but her demeanour seemed different regardless. This might...really mean she was infected...” He paused and raised a hand to his chin, getting a sudden burst of inspiration. “And, Thomas, you said there was nothing wrong with her at 4:30. Are you certain? I was the one who went up to her to invite her to the concert. That must have been around 5:30, or slightly later. Though I was not perceptive enough to notice anything suspicious about her there, I can say that she was in the presence of others from that point. All of us were, for the concert started shortly after. I sincerely doubt anyone could have infected her in the period after 5:30. Which gives us a window for the infection of...one hour? Is that possible?”

Still driven by this thread of logic, he reached for his e-handbook and checked the available truth bullets once again. They confirmed his thoughts.
“And...!” he continued. “I can also assert that the mask, which was found in that area, was not there when I visited her. If everyone was supposed to be taken account of from that point on all the way until the murder, then who could have dropped it? And when?”

---

There was... well, a discovery of sorts. It seemed that the badge had a bigger part to play in the murder than the group had originally figured. But as good as that was, they still needed more before they could find out just who had done such a horrible thing. And, unfortunately, Zach really wasn't too bright in this way. It frustrated him still. Though, glancing around, he did not think he was the only one.

“So the killer needed to get the mask on Mercy!” Zach heard the Infinite Caretaker exclaimed, causing him to turn to look at her. “Did anyone spot Mercy today? We need to form a timeline of where she's been.” There was another discovery. Well, two of them, and they were quite big and quite mesmerizing. Zach shook himself out of a quick daze before blushing. Now was a horrible time for this.

"...Ahem." he coughed, clearing his throat in an attempt to regain composure. "Perhaps it's not too important, but today at around 1 or so, I did see her ducking in and out of the arts and craft store while I was... doing stuff." he informed the group, perhaps realizing just a second too late that he might be forced to reveal a deep, dark secret.

This fucking image makes my posts look even smaller than they are lmao

At Zachary's request, everyone started to work together to pin point exactly where Mercy was. Unfortunately, nothing new was uncovered. She ate with most of the infinites in the dining room before 9 AM, and then left. Felix briefly met with Mercy after 11:30 AM. Then around 1:30 PM, she started to set up a clinic outside the pharmacy. It wasn't until 3 PM she started to see patients, and then she told Cyrus and boob girl Elie that she was going to see someone. Then at 5:30 PM, Daimyon found her and took her to the party. So there's a very large portion of time between 9 and 1 where no one knew where she was. The person she had decided to go meet between 4:30 and 5:30 hadn't spoken up yet either

”Someone's totally lying.” Jezebel sighed. ”Do you Noids need to be told everything? Who's got an alibi for that time frame? Specifically from 4:30 to 5:30 or whatever. Mask gassing time.”

Bliss folded her hands together.”Well like I said, I was in my room resting.”

“Um.” Emily hesitated in her response. “That's not really an alibi is it?”

”Huh!?” Bliss's head shot up. ”But it's the truth!”

“But without anyone to witness it, it doesn't really mean anything.” Emily placed a hand on her chest. “I was making tea with Cyrus. We can confirm that we weren't the ones Mercy visited.”

”Zachary and I were together. Totally won't say what we were doin' though.” Jezebel gave the archer a playful wink.

Bliss's voice started to tremble. ”I-it wasn't me!”

”Keep your head on your shoulders, Bliss.” Lucy was grinning ear to ear when she gestured towards herself. She rested her fingers on her collar bones and closed her eyes, for that effect becoming of a prodigy. ”I didn't kill Mercy, but nobody was there to witness me pouring over books in the late hours of the day.” She opened one of her eyes to look at the nanny. ”I'm not quite ready to point the finger at anyone yet... but we're close.”

Calvin cleared his throat, trying to keep abreast of the conversation. He had still not answered Lucy’s earlier question, and when he finally did, his voice was low. "I was just trying to… find inspiration. For my work. Sorry I didn’t say hello to you and Zach." He swallowed his spit and let his mind wander. The answer seemed to be eluding his fellow infinites. Whereas the last time, there had been heaps of strong opinions, here most of the Infinites seemed unsure. Normally, Calvin would have thrown his voice to some cause, trying to draw any sort of information through accusations. But it seemed as though this case would not benefit from it. Nor did Calvin feel he could.

Calvin’s body was taut like a bowstring. He felt a tension in the back of his neck that he hadn’t felt in a long time. If he wasn’t murdered in this nightmare of a game he was half convinced it would be a heart-attack that took him. He took a deep breath as he wiped away the sheen that had formed on his brow.

"I, uh- Don’t have much of an alibi either. I was in my room from 4:30 on. Was sick of banging my head against the wall." He rolled his eyes at Lucy’s exaggerated demeanor, but didn’t speak up. "Careful where you point, this is still your first run at these." He was impressed with how well the young woman was performing in the trial. He certainly wasn’t as capable. But perhaps that was how it was meant to be. There were those who were suited for Trials. And others who weren’t. Unfortunately, it appeared Calvin was sitting in the latter camp.

---

Felix grew restless when Jezebel accused someone of lying, it was bad enough that everyone was running in circles, but to think that somebody may be intentionally causing it…

“If we can clear this up by stating our alibi’s, I think we should all do it.” Felix looked at everyone before turning to Jez. “At 4:30 I was setting up the party with everyone, and an hour later I started inviting people. Bliss did leave around 4:30 though; saying she felt weak I think. Max left soon after too.” He said as he curiously looked towards Max.

“Yes that sounds about right. I went to my room at 4:30 to change and relax a bit before the party started.”

”4:30? Well that’s a bummer, that’s totally when my interview with Dennis ended!” The reporter exclaimed. ”I went to my room after that. So I don’t exactly have a leg to stand on here…” She scratched her head, a silly grin across her face ”Well, at least I was with Dennis for the rest of the day, so I couldn’t exactly have prepped the poison and stuff, right?” She wondered out loud, hoping that was a convincing enough story. After all, there was no time to waste. Chasing her trial would ultimately do just that, she knew.

It was worrisome that there were so many possibilities beyond 4:30. Bliss, Calvin, Max, Denis (she assumed, as she had left him in his room) and herself. And maybe half of the people had spoken up! The meeting was indubitably important, but right now they had no way to determine who exactly it could’ve been simply by naming their alibis. ”I don’t reckon someone actually overheard Mercy planning a meeting around that time? If she did examinations today, no way it was something medical.” Unless, of course, someone had a medical secret… perhaps they ought to come forward and do her a favor of a big, fat scoop!



Cyrus’s alibi was rock solid, as he had been with Emily in the break room as she had already stated. But there was something else bugging him. Something was out of place that they had overlooked. And it had become more important than ever in light of recent evidence.

“So, Max, you were preparing for the party after you left Mercy, correct? So if you left there at 4:30, you must’ve noticed your badge went missing approximately… between 3:30 and 4:30 PM ?” They didn’t know exactly when Max left Mercy, but this gave them a pretty wide time margin regardless. “If you aren’t sure you lost your badge there, it might be smart to go over the possible places you could’ve lost it.” Cyrus proposed. “Ice and Alice were already there when you left Mercy. They, or anyone after them, must’ve noticed if Mercy found your badge. Because from our accounts, Mercy wasn’t alone until Calvin left her.”

For certainty, he looked at the people who visited Mercy after Max: Alice, Ice, Caora, Jezebel, Zach, Braden and Calvin. “Just to ascertain: Did any of you see her find this badge?” It would’ve been quite an important find, and doubted it wouldn’t have been brought up by now.

He then turned to Max. “That badge is a valuable clue, thus we must try to deduce its involvement as closely as we can. I’d like you to tell me the things you did today before you went to Mercy. Where have you been and who did you see? That badge is a potential murder weapon, Max, we must know all possibilities here.” Cyrus sighed. Cyrus considered the police officer a good man, and hoped he could take this chance to clear his name from the suspicion the item incurred.

Well shit. Thanks to the little argument she had with Ice and Calvin, Alice ended up embarrassing herself infront of the other infinites. Shooting a quick unamused look at the other two, she went back to silently listening to the rest of the court's discussion.

A quick look over in Alice's direction made Ice feel an icy chill up his spine. It wasn't like he wanted to fight with the idiot, stop giving him that look!

Then the badge was brought up. To her, it didn't make sense for the tip to be coated in blood and Mundinol. "T-That doesn't seem right. Thomas compared the puncture to a pencil tip, yet the tip of the badge isn't that thin. I-If it was used to poison her, the wound would've been bigger, wouldn't it?"

Again they were going around in circles, but at least this time they were moving on to another piece of evidence, "Well it also depends on the size of the lead, 2B is a lot different than 2-..." This was not the time to get into those kinds of specifics, so Ice quickly stopped himself. "Anyway, you wanted our alibis, right? Well I've got bupkis so do what you will, I was bandaging my injuries in my room, alone."

"This wild goose chase is getting old..." Alice mumbled to herself before speaking up again. "I went back to my room at 4:30 to rest, b-before I got invited to the concert at 5:30." she explained. "O-Other than that, I've been with him for most of the day, really." The recon added, pointing to the blood donor.

The Infinite Blood Donor in question nodded.

"Still, t-the badge kinda bothers me. I mean, what if the blackened tried to u-use it to frame someone?" Alice asked. "I still don't believe it's the murder weapon, and other than to pin the blame on one of us, Max specifically really, it's basically worthless, isn't it?"

That's when the Infinite Politician suddenly got a lot more heated, "I didn't notice the badge, neither when I was shooting the breeze in the Pharmacy or on Max later, I almost thought it had been taken away or something when he got admitted. Did you see anything?" He glanced over at the Recon.

"No. I-I didn't." Alice shook her head in reply. "At the time, I thought Max still h-had his badge with him."

"You know, with the way he's acting, who'd give him a badge in the first place if he's just going to lose it? Did it slip out of your donut powdered hand, wise guy? Just think for a second for Lucifer's sake, because our neglegence has a body count. Give a man a trophy for doing the 'right thing' and he'll wind up getting greedy. Take all the credit while townfoolery is going down in the back alley. Take all the credit when some drug bust saves innocent lives yet let a murdering pedophile walk free because he wanted to yap loud enough to get his main rival on the chopping block." As he barked out at the Police Officer, sweat dripped down his temple and his eyes started to grow distant. "Take all the credit when all the big bad wolves died in a blood bath because you couldn't get in there without seeing the white lines and shillings!" His knuckles grew white as he held his fists by his side. His last words rang out in the almost completely silent room, nothing else heard but his own hard breathing.

After a few moments, he finally came back to his senses and let his fists open. He stared down at the floor, his body still slightly shaking.

"Can't you keep track of your own things, Officer?"

The recon was left speechless after Ice's outburst, her expression frozen in a mix of fear and shock. She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn't find the right words to say.

Even though Max could have said a hundred things, only one came to mind as everyone spoke.

“Look I…I’m sorry.”

Bliss huffed.”My story hasn't changed, I got some medicine for Caora's fever. You can ask him if you don't believe me.”

“I wasn't able to focus.” Emily twiddled her thumbs. “I've actually been treating my depression with medication for a few days now, if you must know.”

Caora, Braden, and Mary all had similar stories to Bliss, Max, Noel, Calvin, and Ice. They were in their rooms with no other witnesses.

”Hmmm...” Lucy looked at all of her notes carefully. ”So if we look only at the time Mercy was gassed, Bliss, Noel, Max, Calvin, Ice, Caora, Braden, and Mary are the only ones who could have done it.” She lifted up another piece of paper. ” Bliss, Noel, and Mary couldn't have done it though. If Mundinol was the poison, none of them were around mercy. Noel was, but she was with Thomas and Denis. And... I don't think Denis took his eyes off of her for a second.”

”Denis watch all pretty lady.” he scratched the back of his head. ”But Thomas also do so, with less respect!”

”But regardless of how I look at the remaining lists, someone didn't have access to Max's badge, the books, or they didn't have access to the pharmacy where the chemical was kept.” Lucy was cut off by Jezebel's giggling. ”Yes?”

”Hmmm?” Jezebel tipped her head.

”Did you have something to say?”

”Totally!” Jezebel folded her arms. ”I went on a little stealth mission this morning. ”

”Yes yes.” Lucy waved her hand. ”We're on a time limit, so the sooner the better.”

”If you must know, I totally picked the lock to the pharmacy and grabbed a bunch of stuff.” Jezebel folded her arms. ”And I totally remember picking up Litonix!”

Lucy gasped. ”What!? Why would you do something like that?”

”Number uno, I needed some junk for #1 Baldwin's eye.” She stuck out a second finger. ”Number duo, I totally wanted to see the look on Cyrus's face once he figured it out. Tres, Mercy asked me to.”

”And you just gave her access to dangerous chemicals like that?” Lucy growled. ”She could be dead because of what you did! Now anyone could have access to that poison.”

”Nah, nurse Betty was tre smart about it.” Jezebel was grinning ear to ear. ”She stashed everything in the quarantine room.”

Lucy's eyes were squinted shut. ”Just... Did you take all the poison?”

”Nope! Like, I didn't want anyone to know I was there, so I took very small samples of everything and junk. Betty was quiet about the details too. She was working on something with someone. Dunno who it was.”

”If we survive this trial, you and I are going to have a talk!” Lucy turned to everyone else. ”Alright, so which of you had access to the carnage sister's room? Don't make me stri-”

Monokuma pointed at the free runner.”Felix.”

”Waaahhh!” Lucy turned to everyone else. ”You just told us like that?”

Monokuma folded his arms behind his back.”I don't want a repeat of the first trial. This is a christian killing game and I refuse to let people show their knickers to each other again. So yes! Felix has the handbook.”

Lucy locked eyes with Felix. ”Alright, butler.” She was breathless. ”You can explain how you came in contact with that handbook, but I really need to know if you shared it with anyone. I know Mercy had it, but at this point it seems safe to say she had the books and the Litonix with her too. So it's important that I know everyone who had access to that handbook.”

“I...” Felix anxiously looked at his feet, a clear sense of dread taking hold of his body. He was quiet for half a minute before finally looking towards Max. “I only ever gave two people access, and one of them is...dead. the other...” He said as he pointed towards Max.

”Alright, thank you.” Lucy wrote a few more names on her papers. ”Max, you had access to the poison used to make Mundinol, as well as a book that explains how to make it. You were seen with mercy around the time she would have needed to be poisoned, and the badge definitely spent some time in your possession. You also have no alibi for the time the mask was put on her face.” Lucy put her fists on her hips. ”Fwahwahwahwa! I'm blowing this case wide open! Regardless of how you look at it, the only person who could have possibly murdered Mercy evergreen is you! The evidence just doesn't work for anyone else!”

“Is that what you think?” Max placed a hand on his forehead and sighed cumbersomely deep. “I really screwed up this time, didn’t I...Even I, as a the ultimate cop came to the same conclusion as you. No matter how much I ponder and think, Nobody but me could have done it...”

It became eerily quiet in the court as Max did not offer a rebuttal or a defense of any sort, which felt like it went on for an eternity.

”No!” But then a single voice broke the silence.

”I refuse to accept that, be-because Max couldn’t have done it, a-and I have proof!”

“Is that right? Then tell me.”

“Well...It’s cuz uhh.” Felix slowly lowered his head. Maybe it was because of the adrenaline shooting through his veins, but his feet became blurrier by the second. But could adrenaline cause you to lose your balance? The freerunner looked up again, only to see Max with a terrified look aimed at...him? Why did he look like he’d seen a ghost just now. Why was his face becoming blurrier and blurrier, turning a shade of red. And w.y w.s ..ery...ng rot.t..n.

Before anybody could react, Felix fell to the ground, hemorrhaging and vomiting blood until his body stopped moving.

”FELIX”

The room was eerily silent. In the following seconds, many of the infinites reacted by recoiling in horror or shouting. But not the bear. He sighed, seemingly relieved by the turn out.

” Oh, phew!” Monokuma wiped some sweat off of his forehead. ”I was worried we might actually get through the third case without a second killing. That would have broken tradition!” Killgood looked at his watch. ”Alright, time for monokuma file 3.5!”



Victim: Felix Garfield

Time of death: 8:30

cause of death: Unclear. Victim was throwing up blood before they expired. Thier lower back also appears to have been pricked by something.

”And for anyone wondering, yes, Felix's stab wound is consistent with the one on Mercy's hand.”

”But Felix wasn't near mercy when she was giving everyone a checkup. Does that mean Max poisoned Mercy and then came back to finish off Felix?” Lucy scratched her chin. ”Did Max do anything weird when he came back?”

”He didn't come back!” Bliss practically shouted. ”Around three he left and we all started to set up. If mundinol was used to kill both of them, it couldn't have been Max!”

“No…”

Max’s eyes were locked onto Felix’s corpse, a glassy almost mindless expression on his face. His entire body was stale and motionless, and he didn’t respond to any of the comments made by monokuma or anyone else; the infinite cop was in complete shock.

Jezebel turned to look at Faith. ”Still think Mercy poisoned herself with the badge?” She grinned.

”The badge is starting to not look like the murder weapon.” Lucy placed her hands on her podium and looked at everyone. ”Felix was stabbed in the back with something. I want everyone to think back to the party, was there any time Felix's back could have landed on something sharp?”

And that is how in an instant the entire trial was turned on its head. A gasp of surprise escaped Cyrus as the free runner collapsed, but just like with Mercy there was little doubt that they were already too late. “God fucking damn it!” Cyrus exclaimed, barely containing himself. Dang it, he had to think. There had to be something off.

And then it hit him when he heard Bliss speak. “Wait a second… Thomas and I had an argument with Max. That was around 1:30, and we all went to our rooms afterwards. Did that last until 3PM?” Cyrus wondered aloud. “I can barely imagine it so. And does that mean Max went to his room, then back to the party setup, just to leave again to look for Mercy?” Cyrus felt that something didn’t add up there. “At what time did you guys start setting up the party anyway?”

Cyrus agreed with Lucy as well, however. “Maybe not, but the badge had to be procured and poisoned somehow. And it was definitely bloodied. Looking at other avenues for the murder weapon is fine, but we shouldn’t disregard its value as a clue. For both Mercy’s and Felix’s sake… shit” He pointed out in a not exactly calm manner.



Noel was shocked, but she recovered significantly faster than most others. At the very least, she managed to suppress her excitement to put up a façade of shock. There was only one word truly going through her head: S C O O P.
But luckily the reporter managed to retain her composure, instead of turning into a drooling, mad paparazzi photographer just about to snap the perfect shot of that greasy celeb cheating on his wife.

If only she didn’t have that excited twinkle in her eyes. Aw well, maybe they wouldn’t notice.

She did feel truly sorry for Felix. And that’s why she now wanted to catch this murderer more than ever. ”Mercy and Felix had punch together, but I don’t think the poison was in that. Mercy died too early for that, and it doesn’t explain the puncture wound.” she considered again. ”Yes, they definitely had to be murdered at different moments, perhaps with different poisons as well. If Felix was preparing for the party around 4:30, then it must’ve been litonix during the party…” And then it hit her.

”The dance! ” Noel exclaimed. ”Mercy bumped Felix into one of the tables pretty hard during their dancing… And she had the badge on her as well!” But the thought of that made Noel’s face whiten. ”But that’d mean that… Mercy murdered Felix?” It would explain a lot. Why else would Mercy have asked Felix for the books, and Jezebel for the poison? ”But why… how?”

---

Alice was silenced again once the courtroom's discussion began heating up. Even after she said she didn't think the badge was the murder weapon, all the evidence pointed to Max being the killer. While even the cop had thought he had done it, the recon didn't believe it for a second. She was about to speak up again when Felix broke the silence before her.

Then the infinite free runner collapsed onto the ground, suffering the same fate as the infinite plague doctor. "Oh God, no!!" Alice shouted in fear, watching him expire in the same manner as her friend did. Her grip on the podium tightened, before the recon slapped herself across the face. "Get a grip, Masson. Now's not the time to panic!" She told herself, crossing her arms in thought.

What caught her atention was what Noel was implying. That Mercy had comitted a murder suicide. "No- No, no, no- I refuse to believe that! She's not that kind of person!" Alice exclaimed. If anything, she would be the one to take her own life. But Mercy? That didn't seem like something the plague doctor would do. Maybe the recon didn't know her as well as she thought she had?

Faith almost couldn't believe her eyes. Almost. For a little while, she wasn't sure how to join in on the conversation. The repeated and blatant ignoring of her ideas and suggestions left her a tad left out, and the conversation was simply something she couldn't enter. Everyone talked about their alibis for times like 3pm, and early in the morning, but she didn't have anything for that. She had spent the entire time planning for the the Party, and only left at 5:30pm to gather guests. She hadn't even seen Mercy.

But as she watched the panicking Felix, and his subsequent death, she forced herself to think. This wasn't what she wanted, at all, but it would help. She hated to think that, but it would. Probably. Her eyes scrunched closed as she thought, about the evidence, and everything that had gone on. Was there some kind of discrepancy something? Maybe someone had lied?

Her eyes opened, and she found herself still staring towards the empty podium Felix once inhabited. Cyrus and Noel were talking about something or another, about the Party, but she couldn't join in on that either. Like an idiot she had spent the entire Concert, and half the Party in her room, crying to herself. Even then she only spoke to Ice for a little bit, and heard about the sheer disarray that was Table 3. But then she heard it.



She slammed her hands onto her podium dramatically, and then quickly realised what she had just said. A small blush and look of "What exactly did I just do" flashed across her face, before she quickly steeled herself into the role. Maybe now wasn't the time, but she was going to do it anyway!

"The badge wasn't used to kill Felix, silly! If what you're saying is true, and Felix was bumped into a table, then the real killer must have set something up for him to be stabbed with. I checked all the tables before the Concert began, soooooooooo nobody did it before!" she said somewhat, somehow, cheerily, before pulling up her handbook, "Ahem. 'Mundinol is a poisonous chemical compound formed by the combination of Litonix, and several other different chemicals. It is highly toxic, much like Litonix, and can kill in four to five hours.' Four to five hours? But the Party was at 7, and Felix died at 8:30? If the badge was the murder weapon, it would have taken a suuuuper long time to kill him, and he'd still be standing there!"

Faith gave something of a smile, then looked towards Noel.
"So whiiiiiiich table did he bump into again~? Cause I've got the seating plan memorised - I did make it after all! Somebody set something to poison him with, so whoever was on the table Felix bumped into is a suspect!" she giggled, before continuining on for just a little longer, "Oh, just in case you guys forgot or anything, here's the Seating Plan~! I was really happy with this thing, until Table 3 had to go and ruin everything!

Table 1:
Cyrus, Bliss, Caora, Lucy and Thomas
Table 2:
Felix, Mercy, Max, Noel, Daimyon and Mary
Table 3:
Faith, Alice, Ice, Calvin and Emily
Table 4:
Denis, Braden, Jez and Zach"

”Noel is right though, Felix was thrown pretty hard at the table. But was there anything around that would cause a pencil-shaped stab wound? I doubt you could do that with silverware.” Lucy was stroking her chin. ”Oh, and Monokuma. According to the rules, only one blackened can be tried at a time. The fact that you're giving us two Monokuma files means that they were both killed by the same blackened, correct?”

Monokuma nodded. ”The special rules for using the mask still apply of course. But yes, both of their deaths were caused by the same person.”

”Felix bumped into our table.” Bliss cleared her throat. ”But like Faith said, what could he have bumped into? There was nothing at that table that could hurt him.”

Lucy was scrambling to look through her notes. ”Alright everyone, this is a minor set back! Most of the case is still solid. The killer definitely needed access to mercy, the books, and the poison. The only thing that we might need to reconstruct is the time these two were poisoned, and what the actual murderer weapon was. Because you heard Monokuma. Whatever killed Mercy, also killed Felix.”

Bliss closed her eyes. ”Think, was there anything at table one that might have a pencil like-point on it?”

"There's only one thing I can think of." Thomas's voice once again rang out in the Court of Carnage, and his tone could not have suggested him being less considerate of the other Infinite's. At this point, he seemed to be entirely disassociated from the current situation. Depending on who was observing, they may have considered that obliviously inconsiderate, or obviously insidious. He didn't even seem remotely phased by Felix's death.

His next words were only directed towards Bliss. "Of course, if I'm to trust our Prodigies deduction that the silverware was not used to impale the late Felix, and there wasn't anyone else in possession of a conveniently pencil-sized skewer, then that would only leave your umbrella." Thomas looked around to each of the individuals who he had sat with, mentally confirming that he in fact did not see anything else that could've been used as a murder weapon.

"During the entirety of our dinner, you held on to the umbrella; even whilst dancing with the statesman. I now realize that I had possibly miss-attributed that behavior to a quirkiness you share with many Infinite's. I don't mean to get ahead of myself, but surely you agree that one could easily misinterpret this behavior as something far less wholesome than a quirk."

"It's not as if there's no other possibility, Infinite Nanny, but I hope you understand my suspicion. I recall that your umbrella was not particularly large, but I don't recall what type of tip it had. Do you have it with you right now? If you do, perhaps we could take a look at it together, and we can decide whether it would've been a suitable tool for delivering a poison."

”W-what?” Bliss's eyes shot open. ”I-I don't really think that's possible?”

Monokuma had vanished, but swiftly returned with the umbrella. ”Unfortunately, Bliss dropped it in the blood shortly after Mercy expired...” He pointed at the tip. ”But luckily, it was still open, so the extremely sharp tip never touched the ground.” Monokuma looked at the tip of the umbrella and squinted. ”Hey! How come there's blood on here!? This doesn't make any sense.”

Lucy's hair was sticking out in all directions as she frantically went over the notes.”So it was possible, it was possible!” She had a fist filled with papers. ”I know what happened now!” She arranged her papers. ”Like I said earlier, only Bliss, Noel, Max, Calvin, Ice, Caora, Braden, and Mary could have been alone with mercy.”

Bliss's face was pale. ”W-when I served mercy her food, we talked. It wasn't until after she walked away from the table I noticed her hand was bandaged. I didn't stab her!

Lucy fret her brow. ”It wasn't Calvin, Caora, Braden, or Mary. None of them had access to the pharmacy or the quarantine chamber where the poison was kept. You could have gotten some when you got Caora his medicine.”

”She gave me the umbrella you know? Mercy gave me this umbrella a few days ago. It was her idea to dance with it!“

”Ice and Noel did not have access to the books. I can confirm they never set foot inside the study. But you and Caora had plenty of time to search for something to read. You could have lifted the book then, or simply intercepted Mercy once it was in her possession.”

”It's not good manners to leave the umbrella on the table but...“

”...Max was never even near your umbrella. Felix served everyone before taking a seat. I hope you're not going to suggest someone tampered with it while you weren't looking?”

Bliss whimpered. ”B-but.“

Lucy tipped her head folward. ”Bliss Buckly, what drives a caring nanny to kill a doctor and her friend?”

”I didn't do it! I didn't do it! You're going to kill us all! After him I would never...“ Bliss plastered her hands over her face before shrieking. ”Faith, Cyrus, save me.“

Could it really have been Bliss? The umbrella was pretty damning, but the badge had been pretty damning before with the mundinol on it. Wait, something didn’t make sense there. “I know this looks bad, but I must point out that Bliss did have an alibi until 4:30, Bliss couldn’t have stabbed her before that. Are you implying the mundinol took effect at least a full half-hour earlier than it was supposed to?” He shook his head. “Is that even possible? Does the book say anything about that? This disease seems to damage the lungs and Mercy had asthma, so it might be possible? I’m not exactly a medical expert.”

Thinking of the badge, another question popped up. “How similar are the badge and the umbrella, could they cause the same kind of wound? If they could, and I imagine they might seeing how we considered the badge the murder weapon... is it possible the badge was used for Mercy and the umbrella for Felix?”

His next argument might be more convincing. “Furthermore, we must consider that it was Mercy that asked for the books, and asked Jezebel to get it from the pharmacy in the early morning. If she truly was infected and coerced into getting those. The person must’ve infected her in the morning. Therefore, I’d suggest we hear Bliss’s alibi first, it’s only fair. Mercy must’ve been infected, after all, unless you suggest she just happened to push Felix into a poisoned umbrella, I’m not buying that.”

Then he remembered a final argument“Also, I do recall that Noel mentioned Thomas made an inventory of the pharmacy. I'm assuming he did this after Jezebel broke in. Was there any litonix left in there when you did your inventory, Thomas?”

Things indeed looked bad, but it wasn’t over yet. Bliss was dear to the politician, and he decided to place his faith in her innocence. Now all he could hope was that he wasn’t betrayed.