The Pale Blue Eye pulls a pretty neat final twist that I've always wanted to see play out in a whodunnit, but unfortunately it also executes that twist in the lamest way possible

Chapter 1: Drop Dead Gorgeous - Deadly Life

The second part of the first chapter! As always, thanks to @xagrofiction and @labyrinth-of-headcanons. At first I thought splitting up this chapter into two parts would be enough. But alas it wasn’t, so a third part will be coming. And I hope you won’t hate me too much after this chapter :’D

After spending two peaceful days in the manor, I had started to hope it would stay that way. Of course it didn't. But we didn't know it at this time and thought that just being all buddy-buddy would be the key to getting out of this mess. Which made the shock all the bigger.

We just had a nice breakfast when we were suddenly interrupted by a cracking sound. We looked around and it took us longer than expected to find the source: Speakers on the walls. I remembered noticing them on the first day but apparently I had forgotten about that at this point. Again, there was this sound, then a voice could be heard. The voice of a certain bear... „A-hem! It's good to see you all got acquainted with life in the mansion so fast, I have to praise you all! And up until now, you followed all the rules I laid out to you, good job!“ He paused. I gulped. There was no way he just wanted to praise us. It could only get worse from this point on. „Hooowever, you also didn't explore the full extent of my wonderful rules and I have to say... It's booooooring! I want more drama! More romance! More bloodshed! And that's why I'll be waiting in the atrium after you've finished breakfast! You can't miss it, so I expect to see each and everyone of you! Buh-bye~“ Well, he did successfully shorten our breakfast time immensely. We all looked at each other, most of us wearing an uncertain expression on our face; and the food on our plates wasn't inviting anymore. „Mo-more bloodshed?“ asked Itsuki. Not just his voice, but his whole body trembled. I could understand him, I probably didn't look any different right now. Takara gasped and nervously adjusted a stylish shawl she had combined with her outfit today. Wakuri pushed back her glasses. „He is probably talking about the rules two to five. The ones concerning murder as means to leave this mansion. Provided the killer doesn't get found out.“ Kenshin looked at all of us. He and Wakuri, unlike most of the others, didn't seem unsure at all. „But nobody would even think about doing that. Am I right, guys?“ Of course we all nodded. We wanted to get out of here, yes, but not at the cost of another human's life... right?

When we couldn't avoid it anymore, we walked out of the dinner hall, towards the atrium with heavy steps. Even from further away, we could already make out the twisted bear that waited for us, standing motionless in the middle of the hall, his back turned to us. He perked up when he saw us. „Puhuhu~ So you finally grace me with your presence! I've been waiting for quite some time, you know... In fact, all I have been doing up until now was waiting. And let me tell you again: It's booooring! Sooo I thought of something to make this a little more interesting. I, Monokuma, hereby promise that whoever becomes the blackened, doesn't get found out during the trial and therefore gets the right to leave this manor will also gain a massive boost in their career! Isn't that exciting? Doesn't that motivate you? I sure hope so because otherwise, I will have to think of other, crueler methods to motivate you. Puhuhu~“ Just like that he disappeared again, laughing until we couldn't hear him anymore. A... career boost? He thought that would motivate us? I mean, I didn't even have a career that could be boosted. But thinking about it... most of the others did. The only other people that probably couldn't be tempted by that were Umi, since she never said anything about diving for competition's sake; Wakuri, who pretty much had already a boosted career; Sena, because I couldn't come up with any way that would help her being even more of a delinquent and Iroha, whose talent wasn't some kind of career, either. That left twelve people that could fall for the bear's promise. At least in theory because... who would really do that? We looked at each other. Nobody dared to say anything for a while. The air grew heavy. Katsuo and Takara fiddled with their respective scarf, Iroha did the same with the pendant hanging from her choker. „I like to work for my success. I don't need a bear to help me. Don't you agree?“ It was Mayuho's airy, warm voice, that slowly filled the silence. We nodded. We definitely wouldn't fall for it. The rest of the day was mostly spent with everybody being on their own. I had wanted to get to know somebody better again, but despite Mayuho's efforts, interaction with each other still was awkward. Until the evening, I just sat in the lounge and read some of the books and magazines displayed there. When I went to bed after dinner, I kinda had a weird feeling. Like something was about to happen. I really hoped it was because I'd probably end up having yet another weird dream.

My wife called me just the other day and told me I had a new fan. How thrilling! Of course I wanted to see that fan, I mean, it's only natural, right? And hooo boi, that was one cool fan! Well, it *is* made from metal. What? I like collecting fans!

Today, breakfast was different. It wasn't unusual that someone showed up late since we didn't have any alarm clocks; in fact Takara, Arata and Katsuo all arrived late. But there was still someone missing – Hibiki. None of the other boys had seen him today. Reluctantly we first ate something, we were hungry after all, but after everyone was done we all went to his door. We knocked on it a dozen times or more and actually had to have Kyou hold back Sena from kicking down the door, a thing that Monokuma would probably count as active destruction of property and therefore punishable, something we definitely didn't want to provoke. Instead, we split up into random groups and started searching for the missing singer. I myself was in a group with Arata and Shizuka and we were appointed to the theatre room, though we had to stop on the way so that Shizuka could grap a notebook and a pen from his chamber.

When we entered the theatre room, I understood why I had felt weird yesterday evening. I just... froze. Couldn't move. Almost couldn't breathe either. I vaguely remember hearing something to my right. Probably the notebook and pen Shizuka dropped out of shock. Arata seemed to be equally appalled, a dry „Wha-“ escaping from his mouth. All three of us stared ahead, unable to tear our eyes off of the sight in front of us. We had found Hibiki. Lying on the stage, lifeless. It was the Body Discovery Announcement, as Monokuma had called it, that finally freed us from our stupor. „A-hem! A body has been found! After a brief period of investigation, there will be a trial.“ Monokuma's shrill voice rang through the speakers. Arata started to talk when the announcement was done, his gaze fixed to the ground and his voice still dry. „I will go and tell the others to come here... You guys start investigating.“ Shizuka and I both vehemently shook our heads. Me, handling a dead body? Was he serious? „Look, I know it's not pleasant, but somebody has to do it and you're already here. If we don't investigate, we will never find the killer. And you remember what that means for us during the trial, right? We all will die except for the murderer. Do you want that?“ He raised his gaze at us, his eyes shining fiercely. „I believe in you. Note down whatever you find, no matter how small it may be. You never know what might help during the trial.“ And after he had given each of us a reaffirming pat on the shoulder, Arata left the room. Shizuka and I looked at each other. We both really didn't want to do this, but... Arata was right. It had to be done. It felt really off approaching Hibiki's lifeless body. He just... lay there on the ground. His pose was kinda weird; it reminded me of a doll or maybe a marionette whose strings had suddenly been cut through. I knew it was hopeless, but still... I tried feeling for his pulse. Nothing. I sadly looked up to Shizuka, who was opposite of me, and whispered: „He really is dead.“ Shizuka half-closed his eyes, glanced sideways and nodded. All of this was real. I took a deep breath and all but muttered: „Let's get this over with.“ As expected from the lack of blood around him, Hibiki didn't have any wounds that would suggest the use of a sharp object. Rolling his corpse around, as morbid as it was, to get a better look at him proved to be rather hard. The body of the former singer was really stiff, so the... rigor mortis, I think it was called, had already set in. I at least had watched enough crime series to know that. Apparently, you could narrow down the time of death using it, but I couldn't remember all the details. The only thing I could recall was that this meant Hibiki had been dead for several hours. Shizuka eagerly wrote down all my observations. The next thing we discovered were marks that went around most of Hibiki's throat. Did that mean... Shizuka snapped his fingers to get my attention and pointed at his writing. He had added a point beneath my findings.

-Probably died by strangulation

I gave him an approving hum. „The question is... how?“ My voice was flat, and almost devoid of emotion. It had to be. I did all of this more or less on autopilot. If I allowed myself to think about what I was doing right now, I wouldn't have been able to take it. Seeing how controlled every movement of Shizuka appeared to be, it wasn't any different for him. While I continued being deep in thought, Shizuka stood up and looked around the room, searching for something that could have been used to strangle Hibiki. And the violinist had apparently found it. He was on the stage again, in the backstage area to be exact, and stomped quietly to grab my attention, then waved me to him. Standing up proved to be more difficult than I thought; I swayed a bit at first, as if caught by nausea. When I was standing next to him he pointed upwards. I followed his finger and saw what he meant. There was a hook that could be used to hang up props or the stage set. But you could also tie a rope or something similar around it and use it to hang somebody. I gulped. That way, even the tiniest person would have been capable of strangulating someone as tall as Hibiki. A look at the control panel for the curtain as well as the hooks affirmed that thought; you could wind them up and down as well as move them left and right. All other hooks were hidden behind the curtain. Since I was already inspecting it, I used the control panel to let the hook down so we could check it out. The metal was covered with a black coating, but it seemed to have come loose in some places where a cool silver shined through. But... wait. Something wasn't right here. Shizuka had already left to sit on one of the benches and look over the notes he had taken when it came to me. Those spots, they... reminded me of glitter. I didn't want to bother Shizuka with that idea since there was a high probability that I was wrong, but I made a mental note of it. I took another glance at Hibiki's throat to find out if my suspicion could be true. We hadn't noticed it at first, but now that I actively looked for it, I did find a few glitter particles scattered on his skin. An idea came to my mind... an idea that filled me with revulsion. But if the glitter wasn't from something Hibiki had worn – and I hadn't seen him with anything like that during all the time we had spent here - then it was the most likely thing that could have caused his death. And while we knew how he died, we still hadn't found the murder weapon...

My thoughts were interrupted when the others barged into the room. Nobody froze upon seeing Hibiki's corpse, but it was evident by the looks on their faces that they were still shocked to see it for themselves. Except Itsuki, he outright fainted. I wanted to tell Arata about what Shizuka and I had found out when a very familiar voice interfered. Monokuma appeared from behind the curtain... which didn't seem plausible because we just had been there a few moments, but who was I to question at this point how this weird thing worked? „Puhuhu~ And so the game has started! What an ironic twist of fate! Anyway, I want my trials to be fair, so here, have this!“ The bear put a file in my hand. „This is what I call The Monokuma File! It details the death of the victim and I will make sure you will get one for each and every tragic death that will take place here!“ Which implied that he expected even more murder. Another wave of disgust rolled through me. Still I started to read out the file.

„The victim in this case is Hibiki Utsonomiya, age 18, Ultimate Singer. The cause of death is strangulation, caused by hanging. The estimated time of death is between 10 pm on the day before to 2 am on the current day. The victim shows no other wounds.“

So it confirmed what we had already found out and gave us additional information about the time of death. Monokuma had vanished again after giving me the file. Hoping that I wouldn't be cut off this time, I approached Arata again. But he was quicker than me. „I take you already knew what is written in the file?“ „Mostly, yes. The only real new information is the time.“ „So he was killed six to ten hours ago... But most of that was during the night, so of course we didn't notice. And dinner is usually around 8 pm, so naturally he was still present at that time...“ „Uhm! I wanted to say...“ I really hated to stop his train of thought, but I had to tell Arata about what was missing. „I wanted to say that we didn't find the murder weapon.“ He first looked at me blankly, blinked a couple of times, then grabbed me by my shoulders. „What? You didn't?“ His tone barely rose, but the gleam in Arata's eyes was enough to scare me. I almost didn't manage to answer. „N-no, we didn't. There are no r-ropes or similar objects in this room that could have been used.“ „Then we have to search the rooms! Somebody has to be the culprit and I bet we can find something there!“ I had just finished my sentence when Arata cut me off. This time, he had been loud. He quickly took Shizuka's and my hand and went off, the others in tow. Nobody wanted their room to be searched without them being present, of course. At first, we had been fairly optimistic, but when we were done with the girl's side and still hadn't found anything, the mood dropped. When we reached Hibiki's door, Arata just declared that it would hinder our investgation if we couldn't access the victim's chamber. Sighing, Monokuma appeared practically out of nowhere and opened the door. I don't know what I had expected, but his room definitely was more furnished than mine... just like those of all the others. He had the same basic equipment, but also a stereo and a multitude of CDs. But the real curious thing we found was a small package on the small table next to Hibiki's bed. Sleeping pills. Not to surprising when you thought about it, though. Due to his job, he often had to travel and might have experienced jet lag. We had found some in Katsuo's, Takara's and Iroha's rooms as well, since they tended to move locations a lot. On the contrary, it baffled me that we didn't find any in Shizuka's room, but he told us that he had little trouble dealing with jet lag. Arata wasn't pleased at all with the result of his part of the investigation, and even less so when Monokuma's voice could be heard again. „Investigation time is over! Please all head to the atrium, I will take you to the place where the trial will be hold from there!“ Almost in sync, Arata punched the wall while Sena kicked it, the latter swearing loudly. „Is he fucking with us now?! We haven't found the murder weapon – not even a clue about it! 'I want my trials to be fair' my ass, you little shit!“ Again, Kyou had to suspend her. He also practically dragged her to the atrium, even though she complained. While I shared her sentiment, I wasn't sure about everything she had said. I might have found a clue after all... that pointed to the killer. If I was right, that is. But first, we had to see what Monokuma had in store for us.