One More Lie -Danganronpa V3

03 - Hunting for Secrets

I stepped out of the dining room with a plan in mind to look for the room Shuichi had referenced. So far the other students thought it might have been one of Shuichi's rooms, the room in the library, or the trial room and I was eager to search them all for any clues about the hellhole we were trapped in.

I decided to start with Shuichi's room and lab since those seemed like they places he would be the most often. As I approached the dormitories to check Shuichi's dorm, I was surprised to see Kaito trying to open the door.

"Damn it," he muttered under his breath as he fumbled with the doorknob.

"If it isn't the space idiot!" I snickered as I approached him. "Whatcha doin trying to get into Shumai's room? Nothing malicious I hope~,"

He rolled his eyes. "I figured if he actually is the mastermind, something in here might prove that—forgot I'd need his Kubpad to open it thought,"

"Huh...you forgot something as simple as that?" I mentally cursed at myself. I hadn't thought of that and that meant his lab probably wouldn't work either, I'd have to try somewhere else.

Kaito sighed angrily and stepped away from the door. "Yeah whatever, Kokichi,"

He began to walk away but I quickly stopped him by grabbing his arm despite my doubts.

"Hey, Kaito..can you search the trial room for any clues? I dunno how good you'll be at it, but ... I don't want to waste any time,"

Kaito seemed confused but nodded and turned to face me. "Sure, I guess I can do that but you better not be plotting anything,"

"I would never!" I gasped, pretending to cry. I was grinning inwardly though as a small smile spread across Kaito's face.

.

The next place I had to check was that room in the library. I didn't really enjoy the musky nature of the room and it was weird being back here after so many things had happened, almost as if everything had gone full circle. My blood ran cold when I saw a splatter of pink liquid on the rug. When I got to the door, I tried to open it cautiously, worried for it being a trap but it swung open with a creak and I was suddenly in some kind of tv recording studio.

It was mostly empty, with black walls lined in layers of sound insulating foam and a hard concrete floor. In one corner, there was a tv on a desk and microphone as well as a soundboard. I checked the tv first, it's camera was set on the trial room and I shivered when I saw Kaito walking around and checking for clues. That meant this was live, and even worse was that we were being monitored. I had already guessed that much but seeing it for myself was..odd.

The soundboard got my attention as a sticky note on it read 'Audio Log Controls' with an arrow to a small red button. I clicked it as my curiosity got the better of me and a familiar voice began to play from a speaker in the ceiling.

"...Hello? Is this working?"

I froze in place, it was clearly Shuichi's voice but slightly younger and a bit more confident. This room must've been where he recorded audio for Monokuma's morning videos as well.

"Ok hoping this works...Hi! My name is *bzzzzt* Tetsuya,"

Static cut off his family name but his first name was there. This was big news to me, since it meant that Shuichi Saihara was not this person's true identity. I would need to dig around a bit more to see if I can find his last name.

"I am the Mastermind and Protagonist of the 53rd game,"

There had been 52 danganronpas before this? How had people allowed killing games like this to exist? And obviously from a legal perspective, it broke many laws.

"As many of you know, the game is scheduled to occur soon and we are all very excited! So make sure to mark the date on your calendar,"

The recording just went on like that, an advertisement for the killing game. It freaked me out, to hear if being talked about so casually. But at least it gave me some valuable information. It was then when I noticed a filing cabinet pushed under the table.

In the cabinet, there were some important looking documents on some students that I had never heard of . Their faces were all scratched out with marker and someone had written comments on them. One of these documents mentioned a student named M. Naegi and had some information on things like his height, weight, and talent. The comment on it said "He has a stupidly optimistic view that could have been manipulated to our benefit, We will try to mimic this character in K.Momota this game."

K.Momota was obviously referring to Kaito and I could admit that Kaito was also stupidly optimistic. But the comment confused me. This meant that either Kaito was working with whoever wrote this or that the person had manipulated Kaito's personality in some way but how was technology advanced enough to even do that? I shook that thought away, we're literally being controlled by talking robot bears. Technology was far advanced.

I looked at another document. K. Kirigiri, another ultimate detective. I had no idea there could be multiple of the same talent. The comment read. "Plan to mimic this character in M.Harukawa but I hate her more than anything,". Someone had written a response to that underneath it in red pen, they had lacy cursive writing instead of the masculine black marker that the other ones used. This response read "Geez Tetsu, That's no way to speak about your granny (=^▽^)σ"
The person who had wrote the first comment didn't respond but the page appeared to have been crumpled up and then smoothed out by someone else.

I was starting to put some clues together, the real identity of the person who had been writing these comments and who made the audio recordings was possibly Tetsuya Kirigiri, also known as Shuichi Saihara and he had a deep hatred for whoever this K.Kirigiri person was. Obviously Tetsuya's last name wasn't for certain but this was probably my best bet. It would also mean that danganronpa ran in his family in a way. I still didn't know who the other person writing was, the one with red pen.

I'd have to check with Kaito and tell him what I found, I hope he found something just as useful.

//very short, just wanted to push something out. 1117 words//