#when we proofread accirax read it out loud. she used her min voice for the quotes we had from you lol

[venus-is-thinking]

Hello! Hopefully we’re not stealing thebadjoe’s thunder here, but accirax and I decided to take a crack at the Ace murder theory. So, as I’m sure you’ve become accustomed to, we’re going to run through your theory before proposing our own alternate version of how the attempted murder on Ace actually went.

Your text is indented. Let’s go!

“1- Ace's body and wounds: Ace's body is sitting against a wall, slumped over. His neck has what seem to be three slice-type wounds across the front. These are the only visible wounds we know of. His face is angry, but this being Ace, it'd be weirder if it wasn't.”

At first, we thought this was true as well. However, if you turn up the saturation on Ace’s body discovery, you will actually notice something VERY interesting.

Even before Ace wakes up, there’s blood on his right hand. Not only that, there’s also some amount of blood (it’s hard to tell how much) on his inner right arm. Given that he’s presumably unconscious until Teruko and Eden see him wake up, that means that the blood is there not from Ace gripping at his own throat, but from the murder method itself. Obviously, because this is a flaw in the perceived evidence, it has big implications on the murder as a whole. We were about 2-3 hours into theories before noticing this, so we definitely almost missed it too.

“13?- ???: So, uh, I got no idea what's going on in this general area. Apart from the bench press bar apparently disappearing, there seems to be a whole ass chunk of a mirror missing, which makes absolutely zero sense. It almost looks like someone took a bite off the damn thing, but I don't think anyone here eats glass, not even MonoTV. I imagine this is an animation error, but I'll point it out anyways in case it's somehow important.”

So this is… not an error exactly? Kind of? Just an unfortunate mistake, in my opinion.

As something of a 3D animator myself (this is Accirax tagging in for the actual typing, to be clear), I’m pretty sure that the entire gym (minus any characters that appear in it) is made of 3D models. The fans definitely are– that’s how their spinning animation could be completed with the least amount of effort– but things like the dumbbells are also composed of few faces in a low poly sort of way. I can go into further detail on why the creator would choose to model the gym in 3D, but I don’t want to make this theory needlessly long(er) with nerdy rambling if it’s not wanted.

The bar of the bench press is a 3D model, and in particular, it’s one made to have a shiny metal texture on it. Being shiny means that any lights used to illuminate the scene would affect it dramatically. And, of course, as a reflective surface, it’s prone to pick up the colors of the environment around it.

I’m pretty sure that all that happened here is that the bar got rotated to an unfortunate foreshortened angle where its color wound up looking the same all over, and that color was the same reflected hue of the wall. As I pointed out in the above image, you can actually still see the hooks that the bar usually rests on from this side view. I know I’ve had weird shader issues like this with various objects before, so I think it was just a software-generated optical illusion that the creator didn’t catch.

So yeah. Even though your theory has plenty of bite to it, I don’t think you have to worry about Nico having a bite of this mirror :D

“But since no one ever corrects her, I believe turpentine just... works differently in the DRDT universe.”

Yeah, we got nothing. I’m not gonna pretend to know about how turpentine works, so what they say in text goes.

“All these questions lead me to one answer. Nico wasn't actively trying to murder Ace when Eden and Teruko entered the scene, they were cleaning the crime scene.”

We think this is 100% correct. The state of the gym is too… weird to be mid-murder. I think the best explanation is that Nico got partway through cleaning up the crime, but didn’t get to finish. That explains some things potentially being displaced from their original spot, but also not necessarily exactly where they were when the murder went down.

“Now, as you may remember, there were two pieces of wire in the gym; one by itself, and one taped to the fan. A lot of people assume these two were pieces of the same wire, which was broken when the fan went down, probably. “However, I do not believe this is the case… They can be broken, quite easily with enough effort and tools, but not easily snapped.”

I haven’t exactly run the math, so we’re trusting you here. It definitely seems like it’d be really hard for a solid metal wire to snap, and as you’ll see later, we think that having two different wires might actually be a plus for the murder method.

“One of the evidence pieces which confused me the most at first was, without a doubt, the non-functioning fan on the left. Why the hell isn't it moving? It's not the other fan falling, as we see the fan on the left working independently the next day. Clearly, something happened which broke this fan, and it may have broken the other one as well.”

Thebadjoe mentioned this in their most recent response to your response of their theory, but I think an on/off switch would by far make the most sense. Nico probably would’ve wanted to turn off the right fan to take it down to put the tape and wire and stuff on it, and if we assume that’s possible, it seems like the left fan was just turned off. It also makes sense that Nico may have wanted the fan off again during cleanup–we’ll explain our thoughts on this later.

“Just so you can get a taste of the insanity required to come up with something which is at least even slightly believable, here's a highlight reel of the silliest ideas I seriously considered at one point or another!”

In insane theorist solidarity, we’ll include some of the things we did too! Some of our best are:

Thinking we had a revelation that Nico had a third section of wire when Teruko literally said that Nico dropped the wire we see on the ground

Accirax doing various squats against the wall to try to figure out Ace’s body positioning

Me lifting a chair across the room and dragging it along the wall to simulate possible ways Nico could’ve moved Ace’s body around the crime scene

Holding up several objects (ex. Phone, pen, water glass, arm) and saying “okay so this is Ace”

Suggesting that Nico brought like seven cloaks to the scene to be used at various points in the almost-murder yet not explaining why they still weren’t wearing one

Lightly wrapping my computer charge cord around my neck to simulate the wire (don't worry I was safe)

“The lone wire could have even been tied around itself to triple over itself, if the length was still too long for the killer's taste. This would also help to explain the multiple injuries on his neck.”

So, to clarify, we do agree that Ace was only injured on the front of his neck, not the back.

There is a visible gap between the end of the top scratch and the part of his neck that’s covered by his hair. That part is approximately the same color as the shadows seen elsewhere on his neck and face, meaning that is probably an uncut portion of his neck with a shadow cast on it from the lock of his hair.

That being said, that poses a problem: if the wire were tied around itself and tripled over itself, wouldn’t the wire be clean at certain points, where it wrapped around the back of Ace’s neck? Theoretically, there wouldn’t be any blood there, so any wire that goes around the back wouldn’t have blood. Tripling it around would make it hard to have the continuous line of blood that we see.

“The first concern you may have is the length of the wire system. Keeping in mind the fan-wire is attached to the end of the blade, it would practically be impossible for this system to work if the fan spins all the way.”

This is absolutely a concern we have, but more with our theory than yours. Basically, we looked at the wire, and it looks… REALLY short. Like, both sections of wire, but especially the one attached to the fan. I don’t feel like the wire is long enough to reach, like, the pull up bar, and it’s definitely not long enough to get down to Ace’s height level and still have the slack to wrap around Ace in any way to fasten it. Your theory seems to look more at how to avoid the wire being too long, but I really feel like the problem with length is on the wire being too short, not too long.

This is all to say that we’re treating the wire length like it’s not a problem at all and just… assuming it’s drawn shorter than it probably should be. As long as the ratio of blood to wire length is at least close to right, it shouldn’t be… too much of a problem? Hopefully? The bloodstain patterns are definitely more important, at least.

“Using the broom and probably the stool, the almost-killer would be able to make the fan move on their whim.”

We’re stealing this. It’s the best way to explain the need for the broom. The stool could be just to mess with the ceiling fans, but the broom is what really sells me, as it’s one of only two pieces of evidence (other than the wire) that seem to have been brought to the scene of the crime. (Though, I also feel like they could’ve just stolen the bench press bar, but whatever.)

“I mean, it could definitively cause bleeding, but the wounds would likely be quite shallow, unless the wire is ultra sharp. It seems like a pretty bad murder system if it only leaves mostly superficial wounds.”

Maybe this is assuming that the characters can figure out murders or whatever, but it is true that Eden and Levi express concern at Ace leaving the cuts untreated. To me, that signaled that, if Ace hadn’t bandaged his neck (as we see in his later sprites), he could’ve bled out and died. Just because the murder system didn’t cause instant death doesn’t necessarily mean that, had everything gone right, Ace wouldn’t have died in the end.

“Well, if you don't want a liquid to stain a floor, what can you do? You can drape something over the floor so that gets stained instead of the floor. And this is how I plan to explain Nico's missing cloak.”

This definitely makes sense. After our struggles with figuring out where of many places Nico’s cloak could be used, we decided that (assuming there’s only one cloak at the scene of the crime) it’s basically impossible to pull off this crime with so little blood if you’re doing anything but full-time blood collection with the cloak. So, full-time blood collection it is!

“It's the other place where blood should have been in this method. Since Ace's neck must reach the base of the noose, it would touch the pull-up bar and stain it with blood. Or rather, it would stain the tape on the pull-up bar with blood. The tape which is also missing.”

While we don’t have the same struggles with blood on… this tape, at least, I think this is definitely decisive proof that Nico must’ve cleaned something up and gotten it out of the room. That goes for the cloak, too.

We do also think that the pull-up bar was used, just in a different way. We’ll get there.

“It also gives credence to the theory the killer taped the isolated weights to Ace's chest, since one missing piece of tape could imply two missing pieces of tape.”

And if there were two missing pieces of tape, maybe there could be three (copious) uses of missing tape! Haha… ha.

“Since I believe Nico's cloak was involved in the setup, but was later removed, I firmly assert Nico is the sole almost-murderer.”

Just wanted to use this as an opportunity to say that Ace definitely thought Nico was the killer. After waking up, Ace 100% calls Nico out by name before Teruko or Eden name drop them. That means that, in Ace’s mind, there’s no doubt that Nico is his would-be killer.

Like you mentioned in your discussion with thebadjoe, the fact that Teruko and Eden are there when Ace wakes up could make him suspicious of them, given that he’s prone to jump to conclusions. However, I think that an even stronger point in this argument is our very own (probably) murderer without remorse: Levi.

Levi directly threatened to kill Ace in the first trial, and looking at, like, all of Chapter 2’s daily life, Ace sure as hell isn’t about to forget it. You could argue Ace might expect Nico, someone who verbally threatened his life that very day, over Teruko and Eden. However, Levi’s existence complicates the dynamics enough that, if Ace hadn’t known who knocked him out (considering he’s been unconscious the whole time), he probably would’ve said something like “who was it?!” or “someone tried to kill me! I can’t trust any of you!” 

He couldn’t have seen Nico walk in after someone else had almost killed him, because again, he was unconscious. Still, Ace hasn’t been shy about thinking people were trying to kill him before. Why would he think only Nico would now?

“I think this line could imply Ace made the mistakes being referred to, and Nico feels as though they don't have to own up for that. Like, "Ace was the one who fucked around, I just made them find out".”

I definitely like this interpretation of the secret quote. Accirax has (accurately, I think) described Nico as “all bite, no bark” in contrast to Ace’s “all bark, no bite”. This definitely makes sense with the mindset of, “Ace started the fight, I’ll finish it.” Ace starts the fight with his threat; Nico plans to finish it with a murder.

(Side note, I’m very curious if Nico will run into any trouble with that rule about all murderers all getting what they deserve or whatever. Ace consistently calls Nico a murderer despite the murder not actually succeeding, so it’s possible that’s meant to hint us towards it. That would also explain why Nico’s secret quote relates to them feeling like they’re the one who has to “own up” to what Ace did.)

“They would push the body off the wire, moving the benches to maneuver better, but their movements are sort of sloppy. This results in the rightmost bench falling over, and when they push Ace up against the wall, they do so haphazardly, leaving behind a small blood stain behind his neck.”

Again, we’re in agreement on there being no blood on the back of Ace’s neck. However, in that case, how does the bloodstain get behind his neck? If there’s no blood on the back of Ace’s neck, it shouldn’t be able to stain the wall.

“Nico would want to take care of the most incriminating evidence first: their bloodstained cloak.”

100% agree with this. The cloak is the #1 priority, but you have to move Ace to get at it.

“They initially try things like untying the noose or undoing the knot in the middle, but they're worried about blood getting on them or getting cut by the wire.”

Worth mentioning that I assume the wire is unsharp enough that it’d be hard to cut yourself on accident by just, like, holding it. Maybe if you’re trying to untie a knot or something (idk how you’d tie the knot without cutting yourself either, though). I think this sharpness interpretation is supported by the fact that we do see Nico handling the wire in the BDA, but not having cut hands or anything when we see their sprites, which clearly show both their hands (albeit only the backs of them).

“Nico runs away, and probably picks up their cloak on the way as to at least have the slightest argument for their innocence. Since the lone pieces of tape are there, Nico probably picks them up too.”

Makes sense and is almost certainly true, given that MonoTV says one night later that it took the trash out two nights ago. That means anything from this murder that landed in that trash can would’ve still been there as of the Arei investigation, so that’s definitely not where it ended up long-term.

Alternatively, as long as the bloody cloak was within the gym when MonoTV began to clean up the crime scene, MonoTV presumably would have disposed of it like the other evidence it discarded/reset. Of course, we don’t see the cloak anywhere in the gym, so you might be asking where it could have been. Well, Nico could have been storing the cloak in the gym fridge for the time being, with the intention of either tossing it in the trash or smuggling it back into their room once the scene of the crime was arranged how they wanted it. Said arrangement was interrupted by Teruko and Eden, but Nico obviously wasn’t aware that was going to happen.

“Essentially, it's possible the weight rack was moved by Ace to train. If he was bench pressing, it would make sense for him to bring the weight rack closer to the... bench press bench? You know what I mean. And then, when the killer attacked them with turpentine, the rack was toppled over in the struggle.”

So… problem. At first, this seemed pretty plausible to us too. After all, it’s not like the two of us ever go to the gym either. Still, it seemed kind of… odd. Wouldn’t it be, like, WAY easier for Ace to only move the weights he planned on using? 

We wanted to know exactly how much easier it was. So, we decided to run the math. There are like ten or so of the smallest weights, which would probably weigh around 2.5 lbs if Amazon can help us. If the next ones are 5s, then 10s, then 25s, following a standard weight set, the total comes out to…

Around 250 lbs (113 kg), not including the weight of the rack itself. AKA, over twice Ace’s body weight. So, I don’t really see why the hell he’d pull the entire rack over (or how he could without unloading a ton of the weights, then moving it, which defeats the entire purpose). It also means that it’d be really hard to knock over on accident. Much more likely to just run into it and get a nasty bruise or something.

Basically, what this extra weight meant to us is that the position of the weight rack must be extremely intentional. There’s no reason that anyone would go to the effort of moving something so heavy unless they really needed it in a specific place. This will be very important in terms of why we constructed our theory the way we did.

“I believe it's possible Nico wanted Ace to wake up after receiving his neck injuries. That way, he'd be weakened by the blood loss and the pain, but still conscious when Nico actually killed them.”

This is certainly possible. We have a couple of alternatives that we like a bit better, but this is definitely one reasonable interpretation.

“They dragged Ace's body to the benches. They propped him up there on his knees, letting his neck press down onto the wire system, specifically a part of the fan-wire. Once they made sure he wasn't going to fall, they quickly made their way to the stepstool, grabbed the broom, and got on it.”

So, here we are. The biggest problem that I have with this theory is that I just… don’t think it would work? Like, Ace’s unconscious body is kneeling on a bench. The only reason he is not falling flat on his face is that his neck is on a wire, which is hanging between the fan and the pullup bar. 

Now Nico moves the fan, and therefore the wire which Ace’s entire body is balanced upon, probably precariously. Rather than falling onto the floor, the wire slowly and steadily cuts into Ace’s neck, which… I don’t know, makes him less likely to fall? Because it’s making the wire more “attached” to him, or something?

Please let us know if we’re misinterpreting what you’re proposing here, but the way we’re understanding it, I don’t see how Ace doesn’t just fall on the floor every time Nico tries to make it move. I guess if Nico sliced Ace’s neck with the wire a bit first, sort of like a pilot hole for a screw, it might work better? But at that point, you’d really have to start asking why they’d bother with the whole contraption.

“As his neck dragged over the rolled up lone wire, various shallow cuts opened in his skin. Ace's head touched the pull-up bar's tape, staining it and the base of the noose with blood.”

I don’t think Ace’s neck would be high enough to touch the base of the noose on accident. He’s only 5’5” (190.5 cm), so I feel like this would’ve had to be intentional to actually get the blood over there, and I’m not sure why Nico would do that, especially if they’re standing on a stool across the room.

“Overall, I think these holes aren't too big, and considering I'm expecting to get lots of things wrong here, I'm comfortable enough with my answer to put it out there for peer review.”

Peer review complete! There’s definitely a lot that we don’t completely agree with, but you did a lot of brilliant work towards setting up the basics of a murder plan, so we’re definitely piggybacking off of you here.

That being said, it’s time to jump into…

Our Murder Theory!

There’s a lot to talk about here. To sort of reset from ground zero, let’s take a look at the crime scene, before the murder and when Teruko sees it. I took your screenshots of both sides of both scenes and stitched them together into a side by side view of the whole room.

Ignore the annotations, those are just me trying to figure out if which way the fan spins mattered (it really, really didn’t).

I’m going to just start off with listing off the main things that we believe must have been used in the murder, due to their obvious displacement.

The wire. Duh.

The right ceiling fan. It’s off the goddamn ceiling. Something happened to it.

The weight rack. This thing weighs a lot, so if it’s moving that far and neatly laying on its side, that must be intentional.

The pull-up bar. The tape that previously covered it is missing, meaning it was either in the way or critical evidence to be disposed of.

The broom and the stepladder. They aren’t from the gym, which means someone must’ve brought them there. That’s important.

The isolated weights. They’re too far from the weight rack to be unsuspicious.

The moved benches near the pull-up bar. These are only somewhat displaced, but something must have happened to prompt their displacement.

The bench press bench. We think this was probably only moved slightly in order to allow room for the weight rack to be there, but its position did change, so we’ll include it.

So, with those elements, let’s make a murder!

STEP ONE: THE FAN, PART ONE

So, you’re Nico (oof). You just ambushed Ace… somehow, and knocked him out with the turpentine. (I’m not gonna speculate too hard without knowing the exact rules of turpentine.) He’s unconscious on the ground, and you’re about to mastermind a crazy contraption to kill this guy. Where do you start?

Well, the first step is getting set up. I think that setting anything up with the fan too early (read: before Ace shows up to the gym) would be too suspicious. It’d make it too hard to ambush Ace in the first place. He’s already a paranoid guy. If you suspect that you can do it while he’s unconscious (and, again depending on turpentine rules, maybe you can just… re-knock him out…?), it’s much better to do stuff with the fan after he’s already out.

So, Nico goes to the switch and turns the fans off, assuming they can. Nico then brings over the stepstool and, somehow, takes the fan off of the ceiling, likely using tools from the storage shed. Maybe they can fit it in their cloak, who knows. 

Then, Nico attached the fan wire to the fan (wow!) with the grippy tape. Then, the fan goes back on the ceiling, still turned off. That means everything’s all set up for the second part (which, admittedly, kind of encapsulates… every part).

STEP TWO: JOCKEYING FOR POSITION

The next step involves getting Ace into place, which also involves getting, like, the entire goddamn murder set up all at once. Please just bear with us while we explain why Nico puts stuff in certain places, it’ll make sense once we get to how the actual contraption works.

So, you first bring Ace over to the pull-up bar, moving the left of the two benches to be underneath it. You set Ace up to kneel on the bench, facing away from the bar. Notably, Nico would also put their cloak underneath the bench, or possibly on top of it? Whichever is better for catching the blood. The next step is to attach Ace to the pull-up bar so that, as a whole, he can’t move too far from it. 

There’s only one point of contact between Ace and the bar, which is thoroughly adhered with tape: his right arm. It also attaches one side of the lone wire to the bar, which will be important later. Critically, this is the side of the lone wire which has blood on it, aside from the main bloody portion. 

But, how do you attach the wire to the bar and also Ace to the bar? Simple: wrap the wire around Ace’s lower right arm, then tape his arm (with the wire attached) to the pull-up bar using a shit ton of grippy tape. It’d hold Ace pretty firmly in place from the right side, and it attaches the right side of the lone wire to the pull-up bar. 

The next question is… well, one of Ace’s arms is attached to the bar now. What’s going on with his other arm? 

That’s where the fan wire comes into play. Disclaimer, we’re making the fan wire, like, WAY longer than it should be, but it’s the way that makes the most sense to us, and like we said before, it really feels like it’s just… shorter than it’s supposed to be, for literally any sort of mechanical contraption murder.

So, the fan wire. This thing is now super long! (Just pretend. Please. We could not figure out how anything could work with such a short wire.) So, with this super long wire, we’re actually going to run it over to somewhere else before Ace: the weight rack.

So, why the weight rack? Well, basically, we’re using one of the spokes(???) that hold the weights as a pulley. Wrap the wire around the closest spoke, then pull it over to Ace. Notably, this is where the isolated weights come into play: the two isolated weights are put on top of the rope that’s using the spoke as a pulley to hold it in place. The weight holds it down so it doesn’t move around too much, and it’s an easy fit considering the weight rack is literally designed to have these weights on it.

(The rest of the weights are also on the weight rack at this point. Spoilers, but the entire rack is going to be an anchor point, so you’d want it to weigh as much as possible to avoid moving/jostling around, which means all the weights go back on after moving it.)

Pull the fan wire, which has now been wrapped around the spoke, to Ace’s neck. Now, we don’t need this to actually cut Ace’s neck (trust me bro), we just need it to attach to his neck. So, I think the easiest way to do this is to wrap it around the back of Ace’s neck, then wrap the end back around the front, probably securing it in a loop with, again, a shit ton of grippy tape.

The loose end of the wire is a bit of an issue. I think it’s a solvable one, though. The solution is to have Ace “hold” it.

Wrap the wire around Ace’s neck, starting from behind, then going in front. Then, take the end of the wire and place it just behind the back of Ace’s neck, right near where the cut stops on his left. Next, place Ace’s left hand over the end of the wire. This, if you press hard enough, should be enough to hold the wire in place. How do you secure his hand tightly enough in this position? Simple! Attach it with a shit ton of grippy tape!

The final step here involves a lot of grippy tape.

I’m sorry, please just hear me out. 

The final thing you have to do to get this first part into place is attach the other end of the lone wire to the pull-up bar. This doesn’t have to be fancy; all that has to happen is getting the lone wire to hang in front of Ace’s neck.

Here’s a visual to help comprehend how Ace is looking right about now:

(I am so sorry you’re up against an art major on this one lmao. I’m sure this is exactly what my professors imagined me doing with my degree)

(Also, we realized that the way we drew it, Ace would be kneeling upright somehow, which doesn't make sense. Just imagine he's leaning with his throat on the wire.)

Hopefully, seeing this, things are starting to make more sense. Onto the next part of the plan!

STEP THREE: FAN SERVICE

It’s time to get those stupid bloodstains involved in this whole mess. 

So, everything’s set up! It’s time for Nico to, as in your theory, get on that stool and spin the fan with the broom! 

Basically, the idea here, is that when the fan spins (in either direction, doesn’t matter which), it pulls upwards on the wire. Then, because of the pulley at the weights, that’s converted into a wire pulling Ace downwards, starting from his neck. He can’t just be pulled onto the floor without his arm being pulled out of its socket, so instead, he just kinda… leans forward.

But wait, he can’t just lean forward! There’s a wire there!

Except, that’s the point. That’s how blood gets onto both the lone wire and the fan wire. Ace’s throat is cut by the lone wire, but the end of the fan wire is wrapped around the front of Ace’s neck. Thus, when the cut happens, both are in the splash zone.

Notably, the pulling would also stress Ace’s arm, which is attached to both the wire and the pull-up bar. This is how that section of the lone wire also gets blood on it, as well as Ace’s arm; it gets cut in the process as well.

While this plan only obviously creates one slash through Ace’s throat, he is still kinda just free floating there. The wire could slip, which could cause several gashes. Alternately, Nico could spin the fan back and forth, which would have the opportunity to make several incisions. Either way, I think it’s very plausible that this would do the right kind of damage to Ace’s neck.

(Both because his right arm is the one attached to the pull-up bar and because the weights are to Ace’s right, he would be getting pulled in the rightwards direction pretty hard. However, since we never really see the left side of Ace’s neck, and the cuts on the right go pretty far around the side of his neck, I think it’s okay if he’s potentially at an angle when his throat is getting sliced.)

So, that’s how the murder method itself actually works! Here’s an image showing the whole thing, which should hopefully make it comprehensible. 

(so when does the second ace come into this case?)

STEP FOUR: CLEAN CUT

It’s time to clean up the crime! The most pressing thing to do is getting rid of that cloak, but it’s kind of hard to do that without moving Ace himself. So, the first thing Nico has to do is take down all the grippy tape on Ace: the back of his neck and his lower right arm. While you’re at it, you might as well get the rest of the tape on the pull-up bar, which includes the tape attaching the other end of the lone wire to the bar (which is now completely disconnected and portable, yay!) and the grippy tape that was on the bar before the murder for gym reasons instead of murder reasons. 

Then, Nico takes all that tape and their cloak and disposes of it somehow. I think it’d make sense if Nico wrapped up the tape in their cloak and put it in the trash can with the intention of grabbing it out later; if they didn’t wrap the tape, it could be loose in the trash, and that could make a huge mess if they tried to pick it up later. Or again, they could have stuffed it all in the fridge as a later problem.

I’m not entirely sure why Nico wouldn’t dispose of the lone wire here, considering it is loose. One guess would be that, because there’s still the fan wire, they figure they’ll need another trip anyways, and they could be worried about not being able to fish the wire out of the trash/it cutting their cloak and letting the wire and/or tape loose in the trash can, making it harder to clean later. It’s also possible Nico was intentionally leaving the bloody lone wire at the crime, potentially incriminating Hu, whose custom weapon it was.

After that, they head back. After taking Ace down, they put him against the right bench near the pull-up bar, so that Ace’s right arm is up against the wall. It might jostle the bench’s position, but it stays in mostly the same place. 

I also think this is probably when the bloodstain gets on the wall. It’s not a great explanation, considering the cut from the wire would be on the inside of Ace’s arm, and the outside is what would most logically be making contact with the wall. However, I do think it’s possible, if you consider that the blood was dripping.

I’m not just saying that, either; that’s our theory on why there’s blood on Ace’s glove before he clutches at his bleeding throat. There doesn’t appear to be a cut on his hand– or, perhaps more noticeably, in his right glove– so it seems like the blood must’ve come from somewhere else. So, our theory is that the blood from Ace’s inner arm drips down and stains his right glove. 

Because of the height of the bloodstain, it makes the most sense if this stain, presumably from dripped blood along Ace’s arm, happens when Nico is moving Ace’s body. I don’t think Nico is that strong, so it’s possible Nico basically leaned Ace against the wall while moving him, which gives the opportunity for this streak (it looks like movement, from the left side of the wall to the right). Again, not the strongest explanation, but hopefully viable. 

(As for why only that section of wall got stained… I don’t know, just how the timing of the bloodstains and what part of Ace was pressed against the wall lined up.)

Nico would then take the weight off of the pulley system, freeing the fan wire, setting up for later cleanup. While Nico was already moving those weights, though, they moved them over to the other side of the room, back towards where the weight rack originally was. Because Nico moved it as part of the murder, they wanted to put it back, as though it was never used in the first place. So, if they’re gonna carry those isolated weights anyways, they might as well do step one of the transport now. However, they waited on moving the rest of the weights until after their next task.

STEP FIVE: THE FAN (PART TWO)

That fan wire hanging from the sky is kind of annoying when doing mass weight cleanup, so Nico wants to take the fan down and take the wire off next. They use the stool to reach the fan, which is still turned off right now.

At this point, the most likely next step is that Nico slips up and the fan becomes dislodged– without them being ready to catch it. Because Nico is taking the fan down, it makes sense that they’d do something that loosens its attachment to the ceiling. If it fully detached when Nico wasn’t expecting it, it’s possible it could have fallen to the ground.

Except, it couldn’t have fallen to the ground. There’s a bench in the way, and, in a way, an Ace. 

So, instead of hitting the ground, the fan hits the bench (BANG!). Then, the force of that causes the bench to fall over, hitting the ground, with the fan still on top of it, which also causes Ace to fall over (the clattering). Nico probably wouldn’t think this was a huge deal, believing everyone else to be asleep by now. 

Unbothered, they prop Ace up against the wall instead of the bench so that he’s still out of the way, continuing to bleed out. Then, with the fan down (though more… roughly than they’d have wanted), they turn to the wires again. They go to pick up the lone wire, stretching it out to look at it, before intending to head over to the fan to undo that wire. 

Except…

STEP ???: BANG BANG, INTO THE ROOM

Teruko and Eden enter. Nico is shocked, not having expected even one person, let alone two. Wire in hand, it’s possible one witness would be easily dealt with enough to get the jump on them and murder them immediately, as Xander tried to do with Min. With two, though, it’d be too likely that the other one could either stop Nico in their tracks or escape as a vital witness. Read: they’re screwed.

The best Nico can think of doing is just… fleeing the scene. Grab their cloak from the trash on the way out; if Nico’s bloody cloak is found near the crime scene, there’s literally no way to escape their guilt. Maybe, this way, Nico could pretend to have walked in on Ace’s murder scene and picked up the wire in shock or something. It’s the only possible way out left at this point.

And that leaves the scene how it is as Teruko and Eden see it. The weight rack is still on the ground, the benches are all disheveled, Ace is against the wall, the roll of grippy tape is on the ground, and the cloak and the large amounts of used grippy tape (seriously how is there even any left for Eden at this point) missing from the scene. 

I’m sure it’s not perfect, but this is our best first pass of the theory of murder method to be similarly submitted for peer review.

Of course, we still need to talk about the final piece: 

What the fuck was Nico thinking through all this?

As with your contraption, we’ve developed a decently complicated situation that would be a lot more hassle than just cutting Ace’s neck with the wire manually. What gives?

Well, the first thought is that the wire is still pretty sharp. If Nico has to exert enough force on the wire to cut the flesh of Ace’s throat, if they pulled it with their hands, it would probably cut the flesh of their hands too. Their gloves don’t look too thick, and are probably only made of cloth, so I doubt that would have been enough to protect them.

There’s also the question of how sharp the wire is, which also changes exactly how much force needs to be exerted to thoroughly cut Ace’s neck. It’s possible Nico was worried about exerting enough force on their own, but with this setup, both gravity and the pulley system make it easier. After all, we see Nico only do surface level cuts on Ace’s neck with the contraption; that raises the question of how ineffective the wire might be without gravity and the pulley system.

Personally, I think that those two explanations together are enough to justify why Nico wouldn’t have done it by hand, and despite how hard it is to explain, when you look at the final contraption, it’s… not actually that bad? It’s mostly just a pulley to pull Ace onto the wire. I honestly believe that the setup and execution of this murder could take, like, 30 minutes or less plus cleanup. Most of the time would just be taking the fan down and putting it back up and manually moving the entire weight rack; the murder itself probably only took a couple of minutes. I think it’s plausible that Nico could opt for this if normal wire cutting wasn’t viable.

Except, as we all know, Ace didn’t die. Let’s talk about it.

Basically, we have 3 primary theories as to why Ace wasn’t dead, and why Nico didn’t seem to be doing anything about it. We’ll go over each one here.

OPTION 1: Nico wanted Ace to suffer.

As previously mentioned, it seems like, if nothing happened to help Ace, he would’ve died by bleeding out at some point. He was still unconscious when Teruko and Eden showed up; if Nico finished cleaning up and bound Ace up with more grippy tape or something, he’d probably be dead and bled out by morning.

If Nico did want Ace to suffer for all the bullying he did, this is an option. It’d make Ace sit there after regaining consciousness, just feeling the blood drain from his throat, powerless to do anything to stop it. It’s cruel, but honestly not a bad plan if that’s what you’re going for. 

With this, Nico was planning for Ace to die, in keeping with their response to Charles’ question. The greatest problem with this, of course, is the response to Veronika’s question. They say that they never thought about the Trial. 

In this plan, it’s a little weird. I think that the best explanation to counter this is just that Nico truly wanted Ace dead and wanted him to suffer. The killing game was honestly not the biggest thing on their mind. Sure, getting to leave is cool or whatever, but the primary focus here is making Ace pay. They’re aware enough of the trial to clean up the crime scene, but not enough to preplan any arguments. Not perfect, but something. 

OPTION 2: This was a warning.

Maybe Nico didn’t intend for Ace to die. The wounds were pretty shallow. Maybe they’d even bandage his neck themself, if they wanted, once everything was said and done. 

It’s plausible enough that Nico would believe they could get away with this. That is to say, if Ace shows up to breakfast the next day yelling about how Nico tried to kill him, they could play dumb. Hu would probably defend them, and it becomes Nico’s word against Ace’s. We’ve already basically seen how that turns out. I honestly do believe that Nico could have gotten away with near-murder on Ace without being discovered; without the Trial’s incentive for thoroughness, their actual involvement could more easily be swept under the rug.

Ace and Nico would be the only ones who knew the truth. The fact that Nico could have killed Ace, though, would probably be enough to scare Ace off from bullying Nico for a while. Homeboy almost got crucified. Intimidating Ace might have been Nico’s goal all along.

But this one raises a problem with Charles’ question. Nico says that they did try to make a serious attempt on Ace’s life. However, simply, I think it’s possible Nico was lying here. Or, more so than lying, making a tactical decision. 

Nico is hesitating here. While that could be good old fashioned reluctance to admit to murder, they could be realizing that they’re in a bad situation instead. This happens at the trial while Ace is accusing Nico of murdering Arei, and people aren’t believing them very much. It’s possible that they decided that answering, “no, I only wanted to show Ace that I’m fully capable of killing him and to scare him a little, that’s why I set up a crazy murder contraption” would only make them more suspicious. 

Plus, it’s possible that a clean “yes” makes the rest of the group move on faster. If the group decided to press further, Nico could get in trouble if asked about the specifics of their murder method, considering how probably-similar it is to how probably-Eden killed Arei. They got close enough to threatening Ace’s life, and they’re certainly not opposed to the possibility, so answering “yes” could have just been the easiest option.

OPTION 3: Nico thought it would kill Ace.

This is honestly our leading theory, considering it feels like it accounts for everything.

You’re Nico again (still oof). You’re spinning this fan, and Ace’s neck is getting sliced, but it’s kinda hard to move this fan with the broom, and you’re pretty sure you messed up the fan too much to get it to spin by turning it back on. Even if everyone else is asleep, Ace is going to wake up sooner or later, and the fact of the matter is that it’s not working. There’s not enough time left for this method to be lethal.

So, abort mission. Take Ace down, take everything down. Ace goes in the corner for now. Take the fan down– oops.

If Nico’s hands were shaking or they were otherwise frazzled by their plan not working, it makes it way more plausible that they do mess up and drop the fan, causing the bang and clattering sound. It’s a simple slip up, but it’s what ended up costing them.

The question might be, why didn’t Nico just kill Ace with the wire after taking him down? Well, we already answered that question. They might not have enough force by just pulling, and it’d probably cut their hands, leaving behind undeniable proof for the class trial.

Oh god, the class trial. If Nico’s murder plan didn’t even work, how the hell are they supposed to survive the class trial? They didn’t plan for this!

And that ties into their response to Veronika under this theory. It’s not that they didn’t expect there to be a trial. It’s that everything about this just went so horribly wrong, and by the time they’re being pressured in Arei’s trial about it, they’ve realized that, had they succeeded, they would’ve been totally screwed. Nico’s a pretty anxious person. If they’re spiraling while answering her, I could believe that they’d say what they did and mean it.

And, obviously, they answer yes to Charles because, in this situation, they did make a serious attempt on Ace’s life, it just didn’t quite work.

Why does this all matter?

Other than curiosity’s sake, it doesn’t matter too much how this murder method was carried out, right? It seems like the characters are content to just know “Nico tried to murder Ace, but it didn’t work” and not question the why or the how too hard. 

Well, if you look at what we ended up with for the murder contraption, it looks very similar to what killed Arei. There’s a long rope object–a custom weapon, at that– attached to the victim’s throat at one end, going around a fixture in the chosen murder location to be used as a pulley for extra force. Gravity is then used to deal the lethal damage to the victim's throat, all while they’re bound up by grippy tape. This is an insanely similar plan.

This matters because the person who killed Arei must have seen the scene of the crime. 

Charles very distinctly says that Ace didn’t talk about the attempted murder, and that Nico didn’t either. We don’t see Teruko do so. That leaves Eden, but it seems against her character to go and explain the murder scene to someone else if she truly holds no ill intent.

Let’s assume the Arei culprit has to be one of our four people who saw the crime scene, then: Teruko, Eden, Nico, or Ace.

We see Teruko’s life. She didn’t do it. Next.

Nico seems pretty innocent in the Arei case. I do truly believe that, while they were trying to kill Ace, they didn’t want to kill Arei. In any interpretation, killing/hurting Ace is personal for Nico. It’s about getting back at Ace specifically. I don’t think they’d have any real motive to kill Arei, and other than similarity to their original plan, it seems like a weird method.

And honestly, I don’t think Nico would or could do a murder plan that killed the fish like that.

That leaves us with Eden and Ace. Now, we’ve already made it pretty clear with asides throughout this theory that we’re pretty sure it’s Eden, but let’s look into why.

I think that, assuming Nico isn’t the Arei culprit, the most logical explanation for why you’d want to set up the murder similarly is “to frame Nico.” Eden has obvious incentive for this; as we’ve seen it go, Ace is 100% convinced that Nico must be the culprit. I’m sure that the mechanism didn’t hurt that assumption. Fun fact, this is actually why I suspected Eden to some extent even before noticing the disappearing grippy tape (more in a sec).

If Ace was trying to frame Nico, I don’t understand why he wouldn’t talk about the method of Nico’s attempted murder. At the very least, I feel like he would’ve mentioned it at Arei’s trial by now, but he hasn’t. Ace’s behavior doesn’t line up with trying to frame Nico.

There’s also the fact that the tape is in the room at the time Ace wakes up. That means that Ace, Teruko, or Eden must’ve taken it, as MonoTV closes the gym right after the three of them leave, and we see it open the gym for Teruko and Rose, at which point the tape is gone.

Ace is the focus at the time the tape disappears, so it would be hard for him to get it unnoticed. Additionally, he just woke up after getting murdered. While it does seem like Ace’s mind immediately goes “time to commit a murder,” he’s pretty clearly just going straight to Nico’s door to… I don’t know, beat them up and strangle them or something? He pretty clearly hasn’t thought it through. And, if he hasn’t thought it through, I have no idea why he’d grab the grippy tape before leaving the gym on the night of the murder, which is the only time he could have taken it. 

Meanwhile, there’s Eden, who absolutely took the grippy tape. If you watch the whole scene really carefully (as I’m sure you have), you can actually see the exact time in which Eden must’ve taken it. It’s not before she says the line about being ready to investigate (20:34). It’s actually when Ace knocks Eden over.

This sends Eden to the ground, presumably sending her further away from Ace himself. Teruko is very focused on Ace at this moment, as shown by the fact that we only see him for a bit here. We don’t see Eden again until she stands back up. She must’ve crawled over to the tape and picked it up before standing back up, as we see animated with her sprite. 

If you look here, you’ll see the tape faintly in the background.

This line happens after Eden says to let her help investigate. That means that, at that point, Eden still hasn’t taken the tape. For good reason, too–she thinks Ace is dead. They’re about to go into a trial. She doesn’t want to steal murder evidence right before a trial, that’s super suspicious!

Here, though, you see Teruko talk immediately after Ace is alive. If you look in the same place, the tape is gone.

That’s because Eden is on the ground by now. Notably, that does mean that there aren’t backgrounds that have both the tape there and Ace’s body against the wall, but that’s probably because Eden took the tape basically as soon as she hit the ground, learning Ace was alive. This class trial’s called off; Eden’s planning for her very own.

There’s also the fun note that, y’know… Arei is dead. The new contraption worked. If we’re right that Nico’s mechanism failed to actually kill Ace properly even though it was meant to, then it’s interesting that Arei’s, which in my opinion might actually be more complicated, works. 

This is another point against Eden. Using the spinning mechanism of the spinny thing and the rope to hang Arei… it’s quite literally like clockwork. Nico didn’t have the skills needed to make a crazy contraption like this work, but Eden does. 

So, that’s the theory! It’s a bit complicated and there’s definitely still some flaws in it (especially with how goddamn long the fan wire would need to be), but I think it’s definitely got something to it! We had a lot of fun putting this together, so hopefully it was fun to read despite being… oh god, when did it become 9k words??? 

TL;DR, use grippy tape to solve all your problems.

Trying to figure out the Ace "murder" method

Hey, it's me again!

Seeing the great reception to my Arei murder theory (which, in case you missed, has an important second version (adult warning for Arei's BDA) and a less important third post, and beyond), I decided to try and figure out a method for the Ace murder attempt from episode 6. That and I have a sorta friendly theory rivalry going on with thebadjoe-

Seems like a fun challenge. Let's get into it!

Truth Bullets

Before the murder:

After:

1- Ace's body and wounds: Ace's body is sitting against a wall, slumped over. His neck has what seem to be three slice-type wounds across the front. These are the only visible wounds we know of. His face is angry, but this being Ace, it'd be weirder if it wasn't.

2- Bloodstain on the wall: There is a faint bloodstain just behind Ace's neck. Notably, this is the only trace of blood outside of Ace and the wires.

3- Lone wire: Because I clearly didn't have enough thinking about ropes and pulleys in the other murder, this one involves a wire! That's practically just a sharp rope! Notably, there is blood around a huge chunk of the middle of the cable, and a bit on one of the sides.

4- Wire taped to the fan: There is another piece of wire, wrapped around and taped to the broken ceiling fan. There is blood on the end of the wire not connected to the fan. The roll of tape used is right there. Fun fact, the tape actually dissappears from the background in the middle of the investigation, as pointed out by thebadjoe. Eden took it. This has more to do with the other murder than this one, but it's something to consider.

5- Broken fan: The fan on the right (door view) is broken, and on the ground.

6- Moved benches: Two benches have been moved from their original position. The one on the left is just moved to the side, while the one on the right is toppled over next to Ace. Notably, it's under the broken fan, meaning it must have toppled over before the fan got there.

7- Stool: There is a stool.

I have genuinely no idea where the hell this thing came from. It wasn't in any of the second floor rooms, or any of the first floor rooms we've seen. Was it in storage?

??????????????????

Hey, how fucking far did they drag this thing?! I have to imagine it was somewhere else, as there are actually a few doors which have never been opened, such as in the laundry room.

Whatever, no one cares. There's a stool, let's live with that.

8- Broom: There is a broom. I really hope they didn't get this from storage as well.

9- Toppled over weight rack: The weight rack has been moved closer to the... lifting bench thing, and now lay sprawled across the floor. Yeah, I got no idea about gym terminology.

10- Isolated weights: There are two small weights off to the side. Yep, they sure do exist.

11- Non-functioning fan: The fan on the left isn't moving (I know you can't tell from the picture, but trust me on this). This is especially strange, as we see the same fan moving the next day when Teruko and Rose go to the gym, despite the other fan still being gone.

12- Clean pull-up bar: The tape which was around the pull-up bar since the first day the second floor opened has disappeared.

13?- ???: So, uh, I got no idea what's going on in this general area. Apart from the bench press bar apparently disappearing, there seems to be a whole ass chunk of a mirror missing, which makes absolutely zero sense. It almost looks like someone took a bite off the damn thing, but I don't think anyone here eats glass, not even MonoTV. I imagine this is an animation error, but I'll point it out anyways in case it's somehow important.

14- Rose's account: During her painting session with Nico, her turpentine went missing.

15- Teruko's account: "[Ace] stayed unconcious for much longer than can be explained by blood loss or asphyxiation." Teruko believes this means Ace was likely knocked out with Rose's turpentine. Now, why she believes this when turpentine inhalation cannot cause unconciousness, only vomiting and nausea at worst, is beyond me. But since no one ever corrects her, I believe turpentine just... works differently in the DRDT universe.

16- Banging noise: Shortly before Eden and Teruko entered the crime scene, they heard a strange banging noise which came from the gym, followed by a clattering sound. This noise is... definitely strange, and in fact, I struggle to say what exactly it was. Since it doesn't match anything perfectly, I guess it must either be the weight rack toppling, or the fan falling. Also, this noise must have been caused by Nico, as no one else ran out of the gym afterwards.

17- Nico's missing cloak: Nico's usual cloak (that's what it's called, right?) is nowhere to be seen. Where the hell it went is a fantastic question, but the fact they don't have it in the first place could mean a lot of different things. Also to note, Nico doesn't have any blood on them.

I believe that about covers it. Let's see what we can manage. Also, I apologize in advance if it seems like this isn't very structured, I'm doing the best to explain my reasoning step by step.

What was Nico doing?

This may seem like an odd question to start with, but it's actually one which gives way to one of the most fundamental truths of the crime. One which I need to establish before getting anywhere in terms of theorizing. No, I'm not about to claim Nico didn't try to murder Ace, It's something else.

The answer seems obvious at first: they were clearly killing Ace, right? Well, not so fast. Nico was standing quite far from the body, yet holding a wire covered in blood. It almost looks like they just stumbled into an already established crime scene and were just investigating. Some claim this means Nico wasn't the one who set up most of the crime, but we have to remember this line:

Charles: But did you not intentionally try to make a serious attempt on Ace's life? Answer honestly.

Nico: Y... Yes...

Nico admits to, at some point, having tried to kill Ace. Of course, this isn't conclusive, but there is actually something else which makes me believe Nico might be the sole culprit of this almost-murder. A piece of evidence I haven't seen anyone mention in detail before.

The isolated weights.

What's the issue with this weights? Well, there are three truths which make them particularly strange.

1- The fact they're isolated means they were likely involved in the murder method.

2- They are decently far from any other piece of evidence.

3- They are neatly stacked on top of each other.

The fact they're neatly stacked means someone put them like that intentionally, yet they were clearly involved in the murder method. However, if they were involved in the method, how are they this far from everything else?

Well, let me answer those questions by raising others in return. Why is Ace so far from the wires, and why was Nico holding one of them? Why are the weights the only thing in the room which seem to be placed intentionally, when everything else is all over the place? When did Nico lose their cloak? What did they do to make that banging noise?

All these questions lead me to one answer. Nico wasn't actively trying to murder Ace when Eden and Teruko entered the scene, they were cleaning the crime scene. This could include moving Ace's body around, screwing around with the wires in a way which broke the fan, and, the important part, instinctively stacking the weights on top of each other. Maybe because Nico was getting bothered by the general mess of the room, or something like that (I know I would try to put some order in the room if I was nervous), and the weights were the easiest things to move around.

Whatever the reason Nico had for moving the weights, the point is, they did. This movement clearly didn't have anything to do with the actual method, as again, the weights were pretty far from everything, so it seems to me like they were just sorta "cleaning". And the reason everything else is in disarray is because they weren't done when Teruko and Eden got there.

Of course, you may be unconvinced. You may have questions like "why didn't Nico check Ace was dead dead?". But I promise, this will all make more sense as I explain further, so for now, let's assume Nico was cleaning the crime scene.

What does that mean? It means the position of most of the objects in the room could have changed between the time the attack was carried out, and the moment Teruko and Eden entered the gym.

With this possibility in mind, let's take a deeper dive into some of the evidence.

Two Wires on a Bird

(Wait, that's not how the song-)

Now, as you may remember, there were two pieces of wire in the gym; one by itself, and one taped to the fan. A lot of people assume these two were pieces of the same wire, which was broken when the fan went down, probably.

However, I do not believe this is the case. Remember, these wires are metal. From what I could find, their black color could imply they may be aluminum or iron, for example. These have, scientifically speaking, a fuckton of tensile strength. You would need a force of no less than an elephant stampede to break that with tension alone. They can be broken, quite easily with enough effort and tools, but not easily snapped.

No, I believe the answer is much simpler. There were always two wires; there was never an unintentional breakage. If these two things were ever one solid piece of wire, the would-be-murderer must have separated them before they set up their scheme, with whatever they could find. Maybe there could be tools in storage? Not too important.

But, beyond stealing the turpentine, is there really any evidence the killer really thought the method through with that much anticipation? After all, there is this line:

Veronika: Is this what you were envisioning when you tried to kill Ace? That the trial would happen like this, but with Ace instead of Arei dead?

Nico: I didn't... I never thought about it... I...

If Nico is the sole culprit as I'm claiming, doesn't that line mean there wasn't much forethought on Nico's part?

Don't worry, I'll explain that line later. For now, let me show you that the almost-killer absolutely planned the method in advance.

Broken Fans, Broken Hearts

One of the evidence pieces which confused me the most at first was, without a doubt, the non-functioning fan on the left. Why the hell isn't it moving? It's not the other fan falling, as we see the fan on the left working independantly the next day. Clearly, something happened which broke this fan, and it may have broken the other one as well.

Now, I looked through Google to see how ceiling fans work, see if I can figure something funky out. As a quick and oversimplified explanation, they run a current to create magnetic force which moves a rotor which moves the blades. From this, I thought of maybe using magnets to screw them up, but there aren't any magnets we know of in DRDT. I looked into Nico's laser pointer, but that also went nowhere. Despite the lack of evidence of its use, J's remote was the only thing I could think of for a while.

That is, until I realized one fundamental truth:

I'm an idiot.

The answer is much, much simpler. And it comes from one important question. Why is the tape on the fan facing the ceiling?

Most people, myself included, see a stool, tape, and tape on a fan, and assume the killer used the stool to reach the fan and put the tape there. But the problem is, that would only allow you to place the wire on the underside of the blades. And I'm pretty sure the fan wouldn't do a cartwheel in midair to land upside down.

No, what the tape's position implies is that the killer had access to the upper side of the fan's blades. This means they were likely able to bring the fans down before the murder, and put them back later. However, it's very likely they wouldn't be completely able to fix them, explaining why the left one isn't moving.

I'm not sure how they'd do that, and it sorta relies again on tools from storage, but it doesn't quite matter. There's no point in taping a wire to a fan unless you want it on the fan, aka close to the ceiling, so the killer must have put them back. They likely did this way before the murder, though that raises the question of why the tape would still be there in that case. I do have an explanation, but it'll have to wait for now.

The fact the killer had this ability to take down and somewhat fix the fans makes the left fan's state trivial. They would just take it down to break it, like they did the fan on the right. Of course, the question is why.

I have two answers. The boring one is that the almost-killer thought having one fan moving while the other was broken would be suspicious, and would make Ace more cautious than just seeing both fans broken.

The more fun answer, but one I don't think makes much sense, is that breaking the fans could make the turpentine more effective. Keep in mind Teruko says it is inhaling the fumes from turpentine which can cause unconciousness, and the fans, moving the air around and stuff, would make it harder for the fumes to really be effective... somehow? Again, impossible to know from real life turpentine, as it doesn't work the same as in DRDT. There are a decent bit of inconsistencies with this answer, but eh. As long as Nico could conceivably believe it would help, they may do it. The killers don't have to always know exactly what they're doing.

Alright, Murder Time!

Now that you know how my brain interprets most of the evidence in the crime scene, it's time to get to the actual method. Just so you can get a taste of the insanity required to come up with something which is at least even slightly believeable, here's a highlight reel of the silliest ideas I seriously considered at one point or another!

-Using the broom to beat the shit out of a fan like a piñata.

-Putting the fan on the treadmill and making it run. Don't ask me how this would work.

-Creating a yoyo with the wire and the isolated weights. I almost wanted this one to be true.

-Creating a weird garrote thing with the wires and the weights.

Alright, got it out of my system. Let's actually start now.

The first thing we have to look at is the blood on the wires.

This is, hands down, the part of the crime which drove me the most insane. We need to somehow figure out a way to have blood on quite a bit of the end of the fan-wire, a huge chunk in the middle of the lone wire, and a bit on its right side as well. All of this, while only leaving injuries on the front of Ace's neck, and not the back.

The simplest way to do this would be to "drag" the bloody parts of the wire across Ace's neck, but the question is how to "dodge" the parts which aren't bloody. If you try to think about this for yourself, you're gonna notice this is a lot harder than it seems. The bloody part on the middle of the lone wire is long, but the one on the right is small. Additionally, you have to somehow figure out a way to bloody up the end of the fan-wire, which comes with the problem of "where the hell even is Ace to have his neck cut by this thing".

The first thing I figured out is that the end of the fan-wire was likely attached to the middle of the lone wire, the latter doubled over the point of contact.

(My art is back with a vengeance)

The lone wire could have even been tied around itself to triple over itself, if the length was still too long for the killer's taste. This would also help to explain the multiple injuries on his neck.

However, the problem with this is that goddamn little bit of blood on the right of the lone wire. It can't be solved by just dragging Ace a bit further, as there's a part of the wire which isn't bloody. This took me a while to figure out. In fact, at one point I was close to calling it quits, and just leaving that bit of blood unexplained.

But then, it came to me. A noose!

If the killer made a noose with the wire (let's assume that's possible), and Ace was dragged along the base of the noose, but not the noose itself, then the point of connection would leave a bloody part of the wire which would appear separated from the rest once you extended it out.

(The main takeaway from this "drawing" is the noose, don't worry if you don't exactly understand the triple over thing. After all, I'm not even sure it was actually used)

Of course, now we have to ask ourselves why in the hell is the killer making a noose, then having Ace's neck drag across the base of the noose. The first thing which comes to mind is putting the noose around something, something like the pull up bar. That's sorta the only object near the fan I could see this working with. And we know the other end of the wire must have been on the fan.

This all points me to a theory I was already cooking up beforehand. The killer may have used gravity as a weapon, letting Ace's body lean on the wire as it tenses and untenses to slowly slash at his neck. This is sorta the system I'm envisioning.

Obviously the drawings aren't to scale.

Now, if we miraculously (and it really would be a miracle) get this to work, it could explain those damn bloodstains that stumped me for hours. It could also explain the meaning of those isolated plates: if you manage to secure them to Ace's chest, they would weigh him down in such a way that his neck would press harder on the wire, causing more damage. I'll get to the way I believe it's possible the killer secured them later, but for now, this is the gist of my idea.

Now, there are a significant amount of questions and concerns you may raise just by seeing this, so let me address those.

The first concern you may have is the length of the wire system. Keeping in mind the fan-wire is atteched to the end of the blade, it would practically be impossible for this system to work if the fan spins all the way.

For the fan to actually spin automatically and not break anything, the "fan-out" position must exist only when the blade with the wire is as far away from the pull-up bar as possible. With how large the fan is, the end of the wire would be somewhat over the treadmills, maybe a bit closer to the door. The problem is, as the fan spins and the wire "tries to slack" (remember, Ace's neck pressing against it would mean it never fully slacks), it would end up practically touching the floor by the time the blade gets closer to the pull-up bar. Not to mention the issue of Ace's weight possibly fucking with the fan's automatic spin. In other words, it's impossible to create this system if the fan is spinning on its own.

...The sharper of you will have already realized why that argument doesn't work. It's not a problem, because the fan isn't spinning on its own. We established it earlier, remember? The fan was likely broken before the murder attempt even formerly began. That means the fan is spinning manually.

Perhaps that piñata idea wasn't so far off after all, we just needed a gentler touch. Using the broom and probably the stool, the almost-killer would be able to make the fan move on their whim. And this means there's no reason for them to make the fan do full revolutions. If they just move the blades back and forth a little bit, they would be able to "straighten" and "slack" the wire system however they wanted, and wouldn't need the system to extend all the way to the other side of the room. In fact, they would actually want the system to be as short as possible while still reaching from the fan to the pull-up bar, since that simplifies the positioning of Ace's body, as you'll see later.

But before we get to that, I have to answer something else. This method, you may have noticed, wouldn't exactly leave the deepest wounds, would it? I mean, it could definitively cause bleeding, but the wounds would likely be quite shallow, unless the wire is ultra sharp. It seems like a pretty bad murder system if it only leaves mostly superficial wounds.

Except, who told you the wounds weren't superficial? Remember, Ace didn't actually die from this. And although I'm no expert in anatomy, I believe any neck wound would be fatal if it's deep enough. Thus, whatever the method used was, it could only leave shallow wounds.

That still raises the question of why the killer would do this, but I'll get there. For now, let me give you a sneak peek: I believe the attacker knew Ace didn't die from the wire attack. Intriguing, right?

And if you're worried about the amount of blood being too much for shallow wounds, don't worry. As I said, I believe Teruko and Eden ran into the crime scene a while after the crime actually happened, so Ace must have been bleeding for a while. And I'm no forensic expert, but I believe people who are alive bleed faster than corpses, since the heart is still beating and all that. Essentially, there's a lot of blood only because Ace has been bleeding for a while.

Now comes the hardest part of the visualization, and frankly, the one thing which really makes me doubt whether or not this is possible. With the two benches found on the crime scene, you have to play jenga with them and Ace's body in a way which makes sure his head reaches the pull-up bar in the "fan-out" position, and which doesn't run into issues holding his body up in the "fan-in" position. Considering the height of the pull-up bar, I think the best way to do this would be placing the benches parallel to the wire, and Ace's body kneeling perpendicular to it. You might also want to put a space in between the benches for the knees to bend forward, but I'm not sure.

(Not to scale)

Again, I know this is hard to visualize, and probably harder to pull off, but I don't think it's completely impossible. If anyone has better ideas on how to put the benches, I'd love to hear it.

Now, the sharper of you would realize a problem. As Ace's body flops onto the wire, it's likely going to get pulled forward, but it would also likely slide down towards Ace's chest. That's a problem, since his wounds are only on his neck. However, I have a possible solution for this. You know how I said you could secure the isolated weight plates on Ace's chest to make him press harder onto the wire? Well, if you secure them high and well enough, with tape for example, they might be able to stop the wires from sliding down.

The unfortunate part of this is that we can't be sure if there was any blood on the weights, which there likely would be in this case, since Teruko didn't check them closely. But the bigger issue here is the tape itself: where'd it go?

Well, I'll answer that question with another question. How is there no blood on the floor? Under this method, gravity would make at least a fair bit of blood fall to the floor. There's no way Nico cleaned it up, so how?

Well, if you don't want a liquid to stain a floor, what can you do? You can drape something over the floor so that gets stained instead of the floor. And this is how I plan to explain Nico's missing cloak. Their cloak was draped over the floor in the place where the blood would fall, as to avoid staining the floor with blood. Nico later removed the cloak from the crime scene, possibly leaving it in the dress-up room or somewhere else for the time being.

Now, that sounds ridiculous. Why would Nico leave the crime scene so early? Is there any actual evidence they left at some point?

Well, actually, there is. It's the other place where blood should have been in this method. Since Ace's neck must reach the base of the noose, it would touch the pull-up bar and stain it with blood. Or rather, it would stain the tape on the pull-up bar with blood. The tape which is also missing.

Before.

After.

In fact, this missing piece of tape is extremely important evidence for my theory. The fact it's missing means the pull-up bar was involved, possibly being stained with blood. It also means the culprit took evidence out of the crime scene, which helps explain why Nico is missing their cloak. It also gives credence to the theory the killer taped the isolated weights to Ace's chest, since one missing piece of tape could imply two missing pieces of tape. And- hey! That's why the roll of duct tape is still there! They didn't need it for the fan, since that set up was likely done before the murder attempt as established earlier, so they must have used it somewhere else!

Oh yeah, it's all coming together.

And with this, as you've noticed, we've sorta already arrived at my conclusion on the culprit. Since I believe Nico's cloak was involved in the setup, but was later removed, I firmly assert Nico is the sole almost-murderer. After all, even if the killer knocked out Nico and put them in the crime scene or something, there would be no reason to discard their cloak, and if Nico took it out the gym after waking up, there's no reason to return until they tell someone else about the body.

At this point, I should also address the hidden quote I know is gonna be brought up. Like with every character, if you inspect element on Nico's page you get a hidden quote, which in their case is "why should I own up for the mistakes someone else made?". That makes it sound like they didn't do this, but keep in mind, Nico did confirm having attempted to kill Ace, so I don't think it makes sense for the mistake to be "tried to kill Ace". I actually think this line could be a lot darker. I think this line could imply Ace made the mistakes being referred to, and Nico feels as though they don't have to own up for that. Like, "Ace was the one who fucked around, I just made them find out". Though I am admittedly biased towards evil Nico interpretations, so I can't be sure. Also, this could be about something from another chapter entirely.

Now that we sort of have an idea of how the attack could have gone down, we have to start thinking of the clean up. Unfortunately, this part of the plan wouldn't leave many clues behind, so it's largely speculative. Also worth keeping in mind, I believe this started a while before Teruko and Eden even arrived at the second floor.

The first order of business is taking Ace's body out of the mechanism. They would need to gently let it lean on the wire until the fan wouldn't turn anymore, before quickly stepping off the stool and going over. I'll explain why they're so worried about the body later, but for now, trust me bro. They would push the body off the wire, moving the benches to maneuver better, but their movements are sort of sloppy. This results in the rightmost bench falling over, and when they push Ace up against the wall, they do so haphazardly, leaving behind a small blood stain behind his neck. This is unfortunately the only explanation I have for the bloodstain on the wall which still fits all the other evidence. I say unfortunately because it's a sorta odd explanation for something I would usually consider quite important, but I've had enough trying to explain the blood on the wires, I'm not gonna worry too much about this little thing.

After making sure the body is off the wire, Nico would want to take care of the most incriminating evidence first: their bloodstained cloak. They would probably roll it up into a ball to carry it, though I imagine they may wipe some of the blood off the wires as well. After all, it's the one piece of evidence which can be directly be linked back to them. Since they just took the body down, they would also pick up the evidence closest to them; the bloodstained tape on the pull-up bar and the tape and weights on Ace's chest. They decide to leave the weights in the gym for the time being, and carry out the cloak and the pieces of tape, likely leaving them somewhere else on the second floor. I think one of the changing rooms in the dress-up room is the likeliest spot, or the trash can. They were later planning on disposing of it in a better way, I imagine, but I don't think they wanted to leave the body alone too long, since as I said, they may have known Ace was alive.

Timeline-wise, it's hard to say how much time passes between Nico going out and into the gym, and the moment Teruko and Eden meet in the dress-up room. Especially because part of my other theory is that Eden was actually doing some stuff on the second floor at this time. So here's how I see it; when they return to the gym, they put the weights they had just sort of left there one on top of the other, probably move the stool a little, but most importantly, they start trying to figure out a way to take down the wire system. They initially try things like untying the noose or undoing the knot in the middle, but they're worried about blood getting on them or getting cut by the wire. This hesitation on how to take the wire system down is what explains the time difference between the start of their cleaning and the moment Eden and Teruko get there. I am deeply aware this isn't a very satisfying answer to that issue, but I don't think it's too outlandish, especially since Nico is clearly not in the greatest mental state.

Eventually, they decide they're not going to take the wire system down carefully. To avoid getting blood on themselves, the best way would be to rip out the entire system all at once. I imagine they looped the wire around the broom, and pulled hard in one direction. Do it well enough, and I believe both the noose and the knot between the wires would come undone. However, in doing this, Nico also accidentally knocked down the ceiling fan. This causes the banging noise Eden and Teruko hear.

However, Nico doesn't think anyone else is nearby, and thus doesn't worry about the noise. They just pick up the lone wire (by the parts which aren't bloody), which had flown towards them thanks to their broom trick, and stretch it out... because they felt like it. Yeah, I'm not really sure. But I know a lot of people do weird things to calm themselves when nervous, and Nico is not thinking straight. Fixing up the wire could be something they felt compelled to do without logical reason. I hope this makes sense to you as much as it makes sense to me. Regardless, this is what Teruko and Eden catch them doing. Nico runs away, and probably picks up their cloak on the way as to at least have the slightest argument for their innocence. Since the lone pieces of tape are there, Nico probably picks them up too.

That's basically it for what happened, though you may have noticed there is one piece of evidence I never mentioned. That being the toppled over weight rack. However, there's a pretty simple explanation for this, one I have to give credit to thebadjoe for. Essentially, it's possible the weight rack was moved by Ace to train. If he was bench pressing, it would make sense for him to bring the weight rack closer to the... bench press bench? You know what I mean. And then, when the killer attacked them with turpentine, the rack was toppled over in the struggle. There's unfortunately no way to confirm this, as in the ep 11 flashback, Ace is in the gym but the weight rack is not next to the bench press bench. This doesn't disprove anything; Ace could have just been doing literally anything else. But it unfortunately doesn't confirm anything either.

So, there we go! A series of events which more or less explains all the major evidence in the scene and is (hopefully) physically possible! The bloodstains on the wires were a major pain, to the point I will gladly take anything that explains them more or less satisfactorily, and the missing tape on the pull up bar convinces me I'm (hopefully) in the right track.

... Yeah, so there's still a problem.

Hey, OP, what the fuck?

So, once again my "method before motive" way of theorizing arrives at an extremely complicated system which seems to have no purpose at all. If the fan really is broken as I claim, then there's no way for this to be a remote murder, and a lot of this is just unnecessary. Like, why not just cut Ace's neck with the wires using your hands, the way God (MonoTV) intended? And what the hell did I mean when I said Nico started cleaning the crime scene despite knowing Ace was alive?!

So, here comes the most speculative part of my theory. The reason for the method. Initially, one would assume a system like this would be used to get away with the murder without being caught, like most murders in... well, murder mystery stories. However, remember that line I brought up before? The one where Veronika asks about the trial, and Nico claims to have never thought about it?

I think they're telling the truth. I don't think the purpose of the system is to get away with the murder at all.

And it all comes back to the concern I raised about superficial wounds. Like I said, this system seems odd because it wouldn't be able to cause anything but some shallow cuts. But, what if that's the point?

What if Nico designed this method specifically so it wouldn't kill Ace?

That sounds insane, but think about it. If Nico tries to cut Ace's neck with the wires just by using their hands, it's possible they would get over-excited and accidentally cut too deep, killing Ace almost instantly. If that's not what they want, then it would make more sense to set up a somewhat automatic system which runs less risk of cutting too deep. Maybe.

But, didn't Nico confirm they made a serious attempt on Ace's life, like they told Charles? Yes, but they weren't done.

I believe it's possible Nico wanted Ace to wake up after receiving his neck injuries. That way, he'd be weakened by the blood loss and the pain, but still concious when Nico actually killed them. Under this interpretation, Nico wanted Ace to die knowing Nico was stronger than him, not just by using turpentine and cheap tricks, but just in a straight up fight (though with the handicap of the injuries).

Is that too sadistic? Arguably yes, but we still don't know how far Nico's anger is capable of taking them. I'm probably biased since I am a Veronika kinnie at heart, whose love for a character only increases the more evil and fucked up they are. Still, trust me when I say I went insane trying to figure out any method which could explain the fucking bloodstains on those wires as well as everything else, and this one is the best one I've found so far. It's all I have, I gotta work the characters around it somehow, and this is the only way I can think of.

Nico waiting for Ace to wake up also answers a lot of the basic questions of what the hell was going on when Teruko and Eden entered. If Nico really made a serious attempt on Ace's life, why are they standing so far without confirming Ace is dead? Because they know he's not, and are waiting for him to wake up.

The biggest issues I see here (besides the sheer insanity of the idea) are:

-This method still really isn't that reliable at not killing. However, it doesn't have to be; Nico just needs to trust it more than they do their own hands. And the trust Nico has on their own hands could actually be very little knowing how insecure they is about a lot of things. Not a great argument, but it's there.

-If Nico didn't think of the trial at all, there's no reason for them to take the cloak and tape out of the gym. This is admittedly a much more pressing issue, since a lot of my theory hinges on them doing this. My best answer is that they were working mostly on autopilot. Not actively thinking of the trial, but still knowing in the back of their mind that they would have to hide they did this. It's not great, but it's an answer.

-We don't have evidence Nico even had another weapon on them. If Nico wanted to kill Ace after he woke up, they would have likely brought a weapon with them. However, counterpoint; we know they must have had at least one possible weapon, the turpentine bottle. It's a pretty shitty weapon, but break it open and it would be effective enough. Additionally, the fact we don't know where that thing is implies Nico could have been hiding another weapon, but I'm hesitant to claim this, because again, no evidence.

Overall, I think these holes aren't too big, and considering I'm expecting to get lots of things wrong here, I'm comfortable enough with my answer to put it out there for peer review.

Closing Argument

-During the afternoon, the culprit had to get two custom weapons for their plan. One, the turpentine, they stole from Rose during a painting session. The other, Hu's wire, they simply asked for with some vague excuse, as they had a good relation with her.

-Once they got the wire, they split it into two and went to the gym, a while before the victim arrived. They also brought a stepstool and a broom. With them, they took down the rightmost fan, and ductaped one of the wires' end to one of its blades. They managed to put the fan back up, with the wire hidden on top of the blades. However, the fan didn't spin anymore. The culprit also broke the other fan with a similar method, so as to not make the victim suspicious when they entered the gym.

-The culprit waited until the victim entered the gym for their regular nighttime exercise session, likely after feeding the fish in the relax room.

-The victim, Ace, wanted to do some bench pressing, so he brought the weight rack closer. They didn't notice anything amiss, until the culprit entered the gym.

-With a rag filled with turpentine (maybe; it's impossible to know how people in the DRDT universe would use turpentine as a sedative), the culprit ambushed Ace. Although there was a struggle which knocked over the weight rack, the culprit managed to get Ace to inhale enough turpentine to knock him out. Now, the culprit could have just killed Ace then and there, but that's not what they wanted. They wanted to prove themselves stronger than him, or simply to make them suffer for what he had done to them. In any case, they wanted him to be seriously injured, but not dead by the time the turpentine wore off. Since they couldn't trust their own impulses, they wanted to use a more hands-off method which would ensure Ace would be in serious pain, but not die until the culprit could make sure he felt it.

-Working quickly as nighttime approached, the killer used the broom and stepstool to spin the rightmost fan's blades so as to get the wire taped to it to fall down.

-They tied a noose around the pull-up bar with the other part of the wire. They possibly made the wire triple over itself, and attached the fan-wire to its middle. They also put the non-noose end under the noose on the pull-up bar, for extra stability. For Ace's body, they used the roll of tape to attach two small weights from the rack to Ace's chest.

-With the wire system now hanging slack, like a vine, between the fan and the pull-up bar, they moved the benches under it. The killer also wore a cloak, which they took off and draped over the floor around where they believed the blood would end up.

-They dragged Ace's body to the benches. They propped him up there on his knees, letting his neck press down onto the wire system, specifically a part of the fan-wire. Once they made sure he wasn't going to fall, they quickly made their way to the stepstool, grabbed the broom, and got on it.

-With the broom, they moved the fan's blades manually, not too fast, but with some strength. The wire system pressed hard on Ace's neck, starting to cut his neck as it straightened. Ace's head tilted as this happened, and he started to lean towards the pull-up bar. As his neck dragged over the rolled up lone wire, various shallow cuts opened in his skin. Ace's head touched the pull-up bar's tape, staining it and the base of the noose with blood.

-The killer then slowly allowed Ace's body weight to press on the wire as the fan slowly spun in that direction, the speed controlled by the broom. The wires didn't fall to his chest because of the weights, as well as the slow nature of the descent. His blood stained every spot of the wire his neck dragged across, including the end of the fan-wire.

-The culprit repeated this one or two times, enough to feel as though Ace was sufficiently hurt for their purposes, but not so much they felt he'd die before waking up.

-When they were done, they gently let Ace's body lean on the wire as far as the fan would allow, before dropping the broom and hopping off the stepstool.

-They quickly ran over to Ace, pushing him off the wire system before it could do any more damage to him. In doing this, the bench he was kneeling on fell over, and Ace's body slammed on the wall next to the pull-up bar. The culprit managed to keep him in a sitting position, but the impact with the wall had left a small bloodstain behind Ace.

-The culprit moved the benches a bit to maneuver better around the gym. They took the bloodstained tape off the pull-up bar, retrieved the weights and tape from Ace's chest, and got their cloak off the floor. They used the cloak to wipe a bit of the blood off the wire system, though since it was already covered in blood, some still remained. Not enough to drip off and make a noticeable change on the floor, though. The killer left the weights off to a side in the gym, and ran off with the tape and cloak. They likely hid it somewhere nearby, like the trash can in the hallway or the changing rooms of the dress-up room.

-They came back to the gym at around the same time Eden went to the second floor (this is related to my other theory, don't worry too much about it). They began waiting for Ace to wake up, but their desire for cleanliness guided them in the tense situation. They started trying to figure out a way to take down the wire system without risking injury and without getting blood on themselves.

-A few minutes later, as Teruko went to the second floor and met with Eden, the killer figured out a way to take down the system. They grabbed the broom and wrapped a clean part of the fan-wire around it, before pulling with all their might.

-Several things happened at once. The noose and knot in the point of connection came undone instantly, and the lone wire flew towards the entrance. However, the strength of the pull also took down the fan from the ceiling, making a loud banging noise which could be heard from the hallway.

-The killer didn't think there'd be anyone on the second floor at the time, so they just continued their clean up effort as they waited for Ace to awaken. They grabbed the lone wire by the non-bloody parts and stretched it out, just as Teruko and Eden entered the gym.

-Upon seeing the two girls, the culprit panicked. They dropped the wire and ran away, but still had the sense to quickly pick up their cloak and tape just in case.

-The culprit's plan was to wait until Ace woke up, and in his weakened and pained state, kill him with the bottle of turpentine or some other weapon they had brought with them. And they would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling girls!

-The missing cloak, paired with the suspicious lack of blood on the scene; the turpentine theft during a painting session with Rose; the motive to kill Ace in this manner; their actions and presence in the crime scene; all paired with an admission of guilt. The method shows only one person with the ability, opportunity and motive to attempt such a heinous murder: Nico Hakobyan, the Ultimate Pet Therapist!

Conclusion

Is this conclusion perfect? By no means. Nico's actions are still extremely erratic and hard to explain, not to mention how difficult it would be to physically get the method to work. However, it's an answer which I feel sufficiently explains all the evidence in the crime scene, which is shockingly difficult. Those damn bloodstains, man.

Still, I imagine I've gotten quite a few things wrong, so this is more a starting point than a final answer. I just think it's solid enough to put out there and get second opinions on it.

Thanks for reading all the way to end! I would give you a cookie, but I'm afraid it's impossible through a screen. Have a good day!