#also me trying to make his hammer out of EVA foam

[the-real-list-of-ominous-threats]

I’m going to give you ideas for creative projects beyond your skill level

[ryouverua]

Chapter 5 Investigation (1)

Oh, that’s just my heart breaking. Why, what’s going on with you?

Is that Komaeda’s bloody song playing right now??? I know you guys want to hammer home the comparison right now but really??? Really???

I get it, it is a horrifying song for a horrifying moment, I really do - but I want to distinguish this the last game and this whole set-up (as well as the two involved!) have me feeling all sorts of Umineko things, so I’m going to lend you some alternatives to go with the truth/lies theme I desperately want back while I read over everything again.

Golden slaughterer  |  Miragecoordinator

honestly they both fit well because goldenslaughterer literally played when a similar garage shutter was lifted and the horrifying sight was revealed while also having a harpsichord section Kaede would be proud of, while Kokichi would probably love the title ‘mirage coordinator’ so take your pick or look up the original ‘sing the empty truth’ song, it’s up to you .

And the rest of you are here -

I really don’t know how Shuichi’s heart can hold it together at this point. Aaah, Sweetcheeks...

Ow game, okay! No need to rub further salt in the wound! As if I wouldn’t be able to recognize his coat the second I saw it there smh...

I can’t even imagine how Maki is feeling right now.

FML we’re so in sync right now and under the most terrible of circumstances -

OH LEAVE US THE HELL ALONE YOU STUPID BEAR

If.... Monokuma is moving? If the killing game is continuing? I... don’t know about that...

I want to make a Saimouta joke here but I CAN’T THIS IS SO AWFUL EVERYTHING HURTS

AND SHUICHI IS ACTING SO NATURALLY, EXACTLY AS HE SHOULD IN A SITUATION LIKE THIS

Shit, dude. Still, this wasn’t just some stranger - right? Or... or have you been through something like this before?

Compartmentalizing, huh? I guess if you engage with the situation as the Ultimate Assassin rather than Kaito’s friend/potential love interest, you could move forward in the short term...

Aaaah, but just like Maki, Shuichi has another role he can slip into too - though I don’t know if he can do it as seamlessly as Maki has.

Oh??

I was about to make a comment on Shuichi clinging to a fragile shred of hope that Kaito wasn’t dead, purely for emotion’s sake the same way Kaito did last chapter with Gonta, but...

... Maki unintentionally brings up a good point, though completely flipped upside-down. When Kokichi was being the mastermind, Monokuma was gone - being guarded, I’m assuming, as shown earlier with the exisals - and now someone is dead and Monokuma/the killing game are both back on. So... why? Why show up now? Could this just be the case of the mastermind finally being able to create a new Monokuma, or does this mean....?

Yikes, I forgot - he wasn’t just sick, he was wounded. That... would make things extremely difficult....

Honestly, that’s true both ways. I just... I don’t know if I can see Kokichi killing Kaito. He has (had?) all the cards - there was no need to. He would be the obvious culprit - I mean, honestly, just look at everyone now - he is the obvious culprit - and if he just took temporary control of the game and lost it somehow, why would he risk making himself the blackened?

Could... no, this seems silly, but could this be a framing by the mastermind, to paint the troublemaker as the culprit? It would be an interesting callback to the first game, except with the victim being... well, not ~hidden~ in the same way. It’s a bit of an unlikely scenario, but no point in discounting it right out the gate.

YES SWEETCHEEKS SLAM THAT TIRED HOPE OR DESPAIR THEME BACK INTO SDR2 WHERE IT BELONGS

Somehow I don’t think that’ll be a problem with Monokuma back in the fray and also Maki who, let us all remember, has a hunting knife on her person.

Just so you know Tsumugi, the fact that you seem to know a lot about Junko is really making me side-eye you right now. still love you though

ALSO! ALSO, THIS COMPLETELY RUNS AGAINST WHAT YOU WERE ALL SAYING ABOUT KOKICHI GETTING BORED OF THE GAME AND THROWING IT AWAY! YOU CAN’T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS! Though I guess you could argue the illusion of taking the game away only to suddenly spring it upon everyone again would be despair-inducing and blah blah blah but that is still highly suspect -

Maki is seriously in ‘take no prisoners’ mode, huh? I... I guess we all have our own way of dealing with death...

I don’t know if I’d call it that? It seems more like tunnel vision to me.

Well, let’s take a look at the all-important Monokuma File...

Wait, you’re seriously not going to give us the victim’s identity? You, uh, you know we’ll know who it is once the other person comes to the trial, right? ... Didn’t this happen in the Kyouko/Mukuro case, now that I’m thinking back?

Maki?!?! Wait, really?!

I actually said, very softly, ‘oh, shit,’ out loud.

Shuichi’s just trying to pay tribute to him that’s all

No... no, despite how strange it might seem for Shuichi to not want to believe Kaito is in there, I think he’s making the right choice in exploring all the avenues. Maki should know by now that he’s willing to follow the path to the truth down to the bitter end - he’s done that with both Kaede and Gonta.

Seriously though, damn - you’re being seriously hostile? I understand grieving, but this seems a bit...???

the electrobomb

K1-b0, kiddo, it’s the electrobomb

Don’t stick around if you aren’t feeling well, K1-b0!!! This is a dire situation and you have nothing to prove right now!!!

HIMIKO STOP BULLYING K1-B0 THIS IS HIGHLY ILL-TIMED

I wonder what the equivalent feeling for him would be? Similar to nausea or dizziness or something? General fatigue or chest tightening? Fuzzy head, or a migraine? However it is, feel better K1-b0!

Aaah Himiko, you too huh? D: Man, everyone’s ditching us this investigation.

.... Tsumugi, you’re the last one standing. BE OUR INVESTIGATION PARTNER!

I guess??? It’s weird - she really seems convinced it was Kokichi. With that said, seeing Kaito - or who knows, maybe it is Kokichi under there - like that would shake anyone up. Himiko’s been through a lot this game, so seeing her resolve break down isn’t exactly abnormal.

Kokichi really left a huge impression on you. Every time she talks, Kokichi sounds like this impressive larger-than-life cackling villain from, well, one of her space epics she loves so much. It probably wasn’t nearly as much fun to go up against one of those types of characters in real life, was it?

Unless it was a locked room crime, which I don’t... know about yet. Eurgh. There’s only one confirmed entrance - the bathroom window has to be too small to fit anyone through, even Kokichi and Himiko. We could barely see Kaito’s whole face through it!

“Don’t neglect the heart!”

... Reasons to kill Kaito. Reasons to kill Kaito. If Kokichi was the mastermind, general ~despair~, sure. Fine. But if he wasn’t, which is what I’m 99% certain on now......

......... Self-Defence? Or did he die already? We haven’t had a chance to go over the safety feature of the press yet, but if Kaito was already dead.....

Wait Tsumugi too? She’s right there!

OI

SHUICHI!!!

TSUMUGI IS

RIGHT THERE

AND WILLING TO TALK TO US!!! YOU WERE LITERALLY CONVERSING WITH HER FOR THE LAST FIVE MINUTES! OI!!!

Shuichi: looks at Tsumugi, remembers love hotel scenario with her, resolves to investigate by himself

okay, harsh but fair tbh

I am so, so happy Shuichi’s focus is back on ‘truth’ and off of ‘hope’, you just have no idea.

I WASN’T READY FOR YOU TO SHOW UP AGAIN

You’re just mad you got sidelined for the last few days lmao

THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR MAKING THE MONOKUBS A THING

learn how to use EVA foam well and then get back to me, bear

I’M SORRY YOU CANNOT GET MAD ABOUT FALSE ADVERTISING WHEN KAEDE IS STILL PROMINENTLY DISPLAYED ON THE GAME COVER

So the body was moved... whatever happened, it wasn’t at the press along. Makes sense - no one would go in there without a fight or a reason (EYES K1-B0). Something must have happened to lead to this point.

Y-You’re braver than me, Shuichi... Aaaah jeez, I’m seriously not ready D:

!!!!!!

oh?!

.... I mean, thank goodness, but on the other hand.... we’re really sticking this through, huh? But to what end? The person still alive will have to come to the trial in the end, right?

That is some damn deliberate action. So someone doesn’t want us to lift the press... but there’s only one reason that would be, right? So we can’t ID the body, right?

Yeah!!! So why didn’t it work??

I... I have to wonder if the body was living when it went in there, and if it wasn’t... well, we have clear signs of something other than the press being a weapon (COUGH CROSSBOW THAT WE HAVEN’T FOUND YET BUT WAS TOTALLY SHOWN TO US EARLIER FOR A REASON), so that’s option 1, and then there’s Kaito’s illness which may have finally taken its toll. Are we going to have to determine what the real cause of death is, but without a body to look at? That... will be very tricky...

nngjsdklfngksldjf

D: D: D:

I don’t want to lose Kaito. I really, really don’t. I was preparing for it, but I was still going to flinch when the trigger was finally pulled.

But -

if - and that’s still a big if - Shuichi is somehow right, and it’s not Kaito - I really don’t want to lose Kokichi either, you know? He’s been such an incredible, interesting force during this entire game and especially with all the hints they’re dropping about the whole mastermind schtick of his being a coup as opposed to the actual truth, to have it end like this...

criiiiiiiiiinge now I really hope he was dead before he went in there

.... Oh shit, what if the crossbow was crushed with the body??? 

I said 10 seconds before finding out the bathroom was a MINE full of evidence, hot damn! I lost the screenshots for it, but what we found:

Crossbow

Bottle (poison from Shuichi’s lab??? so it finally comes into play...)

Black Case (so it wasn’t assembled before it reached the hangar)

Talk about a huge turnabout! So now there’s poison in play too? That means there’s a third method - or well, if you combine the poison with the crossbow bolts, a way for Kaito to completely incapacitate Kokichi. There’s no way for Kokichi to know how to assemble the crossbow, and the bloodstain pattern starts here, so if there was a body being ragged the original attack happened in the washroom. This is a pretty pyrrhic win for Shuichi regarding Kaito being alive - we now have evidence that Kokichi may be dead, but at the cost of Kaito being the culprit!

It also means Kaito had someone help him from the outside.... Maki.

Aaaw, Sweetcheeks actually is starting get attached to K1-b0! And it only took you what, four chapters? Better late than never, I suppose!

Did Kokichi call it back for some reason? I’m surprised it didn’t react to you, even if it is being accessed remotely. Maybe it needs a proper pilot to be alert to its surroundings.

Exisals, but not humans - unless the alarm is turned off. You’d be able to do that from the inside, right? In order to get Kaito in there he’d have to have one of the exisals carry him in and I don’t think he’d want the alarm blaring but he also wouldn’t want to autopilot it with Kaito in the pilot’s seat in case he woke up (I have a feeling if anyone could figure out how to use one in a pinch, it would probably be him), so Kokichi going in first to be able to disable the alarm and let the exisal carrying Kaito in would make sense. Not that this probably matters too much right now - this is just me wondering about the initial transport a few days ago.

I have a strong feeling that it was Maki - 

Wait, what?? Seriously?!

UH, HIMIKO, WHY DID YOU BRING A CROSSBOW TO THE HANGAR???

I... didn’t actually bother to cap that last post. I thought she was just nervous the way she usually is. That does explain her current behaviour! Is she blaming herself for what happened?

W... WHATEVER HELPS YOU RECHARGE AT NIGHT, K1-B0....

With... an exisal maybe?

okay I’m going to have to separate this because there is so much going on right now. I like how we started with a clear victim but now we’ve got a lot of uncertainty being thrown into the mix. Disappearing culprits and hidden victims, eh? not enough to soothe my broken heart but I’ll take it