Blades of Despair

-Chapter Eighteen-

The Bad Ending

There was an eerie silence as my classmates tried to process what I had just said. Looks of horror, amazement and general incredulity washed over their faces like a fierce wave. That is, everyone except Morino; he simply kept his stony gaze on me, telling me with his eyes that I was right, and that I needed to keep going.

"I believe it's possible," I began before anyone could refute what I was saying, "that Uehara could have been murdered in the library, and that the javelin was potentially not the cause of death. In light of the evidence Ouji gave us, the bruises on Uehara's neck, it's possible she was strangled to death in the library then moved to the games room."

"But that doesn't make sense," said Yoneda, shaking his head, "or rather, that's a lot of effort for the killer to do for no discernible reason. What did the killer gain from obfuscating the location and method of their crime?"

"I don't really get it either," agreed Iowa, "why would the culprit stab someone they already killed?"

"Furthermore," added Tokunaga, "this means all theories we have thinked about are wrong... is Ori really correct?"

"I believe her," said Morino, "the killer obviously stabbed Uehara for a reason, and it seems it was to cover up her true cause of death. Now, our question is: what was the purpose of doing that? If we go over the movements of the killer, with Ori's theory in mind, I believe we can unravel the truth of this murder."

"Can we really do it? Can we really solve the case?" asked Mina a bit too eagerly, as though she had forgotten that solving the crime would result in the execution of another classmate.

"Well, we can at least try," conceded Edward with a shrug of his shoulders. The rest merely nodded in agreement and I began the new discussion.

"So, with this new information in mind, we now presume the killer encountered Uehara in the library and strangled her there."

"In the struggle," added Morino, "Uehara likely knocked over those books that were found during the investigation while trying to protect her windpipe."

"Sadly, this also means that she didn't die a quick and painless death as I first thought," whispered Ouji, who was looking down at the floor while trying to come to terms with that reality, "but a slow and agonising one."

"After this," continued Miyagawa, "the killer then moved Uehara's body to the games room. They then head back to the library and encounter Mina – they attack her, knocking her out. They moved her body to the games room, sensing an opportunity to frame her for the murder."

"I h-have a question," interrupted Mitsumi weakly, "if the k-killer wanted to h-hide the l-location of the m-m-murder, why d-didn't they p-p-put the b-books away after knocking out M-Mina?"

"Because Mina had been in there," I replied, "so she probably saw them on the floor. Even if she didn't see them, the killer couldn't risk her testifying that they had been there, meaning that we would have known much sooner that the library was the scene of the crime."

"For the record, I did see them," said Mina, "I remember I was walking towards them to inspect them when I was attacked."

"Had Mina not been there, we would have had no way of knowing that the library was involved in the crime," Nishi said, "whoever the culprit is, they sure have made it hard for us to get them."

"So, after moving both Mina and Uehara to the games room," resumed Saza, "the killer went to the storeroom to get the javelin. But why bother when they had already killed Uehara?"

"Well, the wound from the javelin and the subsequent blood loss covered up the bruises," said Edward, "but that does bring up another problem; why were there no bruises on Mina's neck?"