Danganronpa V4: Welcome Back, Shuichi Saihara

Chapter 2: Actions Speak Louder than Words - Deadly Life

Everyone gathered around Sam's lifeless body. There were two types of people in the crowd. The ones how we're crying, and the ones who could care less.

And then there was Jin and Jonoa.

Jin was off in the opposite corner crying with Jonoa by his side, trying to comfort him. Jin and Sam had been best friends since day 1, this could've have been too kind on his heart.

"Man, a bloodless corpse! Isn't that a surprise!" Monokuma appeared behind the group. "This early on too!"

"Excuse me?" Meken raised an eyebrow.

"Er, nevermind. The point is I updated the Monokuma File!" The bear waved and disappeared. With nothing better to do, Shuichi looked at it.

Sam had died at 11:35 a.m.. The weapon was unknown, but the cause was lack of oxygen. There were two red handprints on his neck.

11:35... Shuichi has been in the kitchen with Mio and Meken by then.

"Not much to guard this time," Maki said. "I'll still do it anyway, though. Who else?"

"I will," Jay nodded, walking over to Maki.

"Shuichi, would you like to group with us?" Meken asked. He was with Mio, obviously, and Drae.

"Sure," Shuichi nodded.

Maki was already examining the corpse. "I guess we can assume someone strangled him to death?" Jay suggested.

"It seems that way. God, he's really skinny," Maki muttered.

"The handprints don't look clear enough to able identifiable, sadly," Meken shook his head.

Drae walked away from the group to the entrance and picked up something on the ground. A pencil?

"Why would Sam carry a pencil? His music sheets?" Mio questioned.

"He uses a pen on those," Shuichi thought. It could be useful evidence. He looked over and walked to Jin and Jonoa. "Is he-?"

"I think he'll be fine," Jonoa gave a heartwarming smile. Jin was still crying it seemed.

Shuichi nodded and went over to Okato. "Have you found anything?"

"I can't conjure up anything from Sam's soul, but I feel... regret coming from something. I can't tell what."

"Regret? It's not from Sam, is it?"

"No, someone here."

'So the killer feels regret, that could be useful.'

He went back to his group. "The killer strangled Sam, maybe carried a pencil, and feels regret for what they did?" Shuichi questioned.

"Not a lot of information here, huh? Maybe we should investigate the dorms," Meken started to head out of the cafeteria, the group following.

We went to Sam's dorm, Drae opening it for us with help from Meken.

It looked like it had been when Shuichi visited Drae the other day.

"What's this?" Meken held up a note that had been under Sam's pillow. He read it to us. "'I know what you've done. Meet me at 11:40 tomorrow to discuss why we shouldn't tell everyone'?"

"The hell?" Mio questioned.

"It seems the person returned the paper with 'fine' written under it."

"'So Sam knows something about someone else? The top is his handwriting!'" Drae wrote.

"That someone must be our killer... but the times don't match up," Shuichi added.

"Maybe they got there early?" Mio thought.