It wouldn't be hard to figure out who this secret belonged to. Part of Mori's job involved following people and learning their routines, learning their secrets. It almost came naturally to him. Almost as naturally as his killing did.
Being introduced by the goddamn bear as the 'super high school level assassin' meant everyone knew right away that this tiny asshole had taken lives before. Being forced into a game of kill or be killed meant they wanted to keep their distance from him. He didn't blame them, of course, and even if he did talk to them, he didn't really have any way to relate to them. He didn't know anything about what was popular or any of their talents or interests, he'd always been painfully awkward. It didn't bother him any more. Trying too hard to get closer to these other kids would just cause problems down the line anyway.
He checked a clock as he passed. Half an hour until Kai's yoga session in the entry hall they'd all met in. Did he want to go this time? Did he want the false sense of community and relaxation to distract himself? He'd been to the one that took place in the morning, before breakfast, for the early bird kids, because Kai always said rising with the sun and greeting it with a smile was good for you. Only three of the other kids had turned up and it had been awkward. You couldn't even see the sun down here, so he had no idea what she was blathering on about.
Yoga wasn't for him, he decided. He decided to go get some exercise in at the room that had clearly been decorated to resemble a school gym, likely to give a false sense of normalcy. There was some halfway decent equipment there, at least. He'd never be as good as the super high school level basketball player, but he could try his best to throw the ball vaguely in the direction of the hoops. If he had a greater height and reach, he figured he could be a fairly decent player.
With a sigh, Morihiko pushed open the double doors to the gym, and froze at the sight before him.
Now, by this point, Mori had seen many dead bodies, and had made many as well. Even if he hadn't been known as a killer before, this wasn't the first death to occur here, and nor would it be the last, The body was even in a better state than the previous one, but that wasn't hard to achieve.
Before him, swinging ever so slightly on its rope, Nolan Alzanar's corpse hung from the central scoreboard. His wrists were bound together, and his ankle, just the right one, was tied with the rope attached to the board. The other leg was spread to the side by gravity. The body itself was badly beaten. Bruised, bloody and swollen, Mori almost hadn't recognised the victim. Blood had collected beneath him in a messy puddle, and had been sprayed further out still by the force with which he was attacked. Postmortem, judging by the careful avoidance of the main puddle, the words 'THE HANGED MAN' had been painstakingly written over the floor and wall in the victim's blood. Large footprints led away from the body and to the door, but stopped there.
Not wanting to disturb the crime scene, Mori very carefully stepped around the footprints and came closer to the body. It was suspended quite high up, high enough that if the body was beaten after being hanged, it would have had to have been done by someone tall. Even then, a tall person would had to have used a ladder to reach the scoreboard. There was a baseball bat from the equipment store discarded carelessly to one side. It too was soaked in blood. For now, he would assume that was the murder weapon. Again careful not to step in the blood, Mori went over and tried to get a rough estimate on length. At the longest, it would be perhaps forty two inches in length, which would give a reach of three feet. There were no drag marks to suggest a specific place of death or attack prior to being hanged by the ankle.
Mori returned to the body. The victim's eyes were open and stained by burst blood vessels. The blood pooled beneath him was still wet. The murder had been done with malice and forethought, and an undue amount of brutality. Before he explored any further, he would have to let the others know what had happened. He turned to the door, and there stood a very frightened-looking Hiro Shironuma.
"Hiro!"
"Is he...?"
He didn't even look back at the body. "He is. We need to let the others know about this."
She gave a shaky nod and took off down the hall. He made sure to close the double doors before following.
When everyone in the entry hall had been gathered and brought over, with a few students still absent, the body discovery announcement went off, which quickly had the rest of them scurrying over. At that point, the investigation began proper. It was quickly noted that the large footprints could only be matched to the clown-sized feet of Jun Fujita, the basketball player, who conveniently had misplaced his shoes. With no ladder in sight, and the rather abrupt end to the footprints, however, Mori wondered if there was a chance someone was trying to frame the big guy. It wouldn't be too difficult, with his habit of isolating himself, but his constant presence in his room also meant it would be harder to plant hard evidence on him.
That was how Mori found himself in Jun's bedroom, looking for clues. Either some way to prove he hadn't done it, or some way to prove he had. A collapsible ladder was thrown into one corner, and unfolding it showed blood on some of the steps, but something seemed strange about it. Mori couldn't figure out exactly what it was that bothered him, so he folded it back up and put it back where he found it.
The wardrobe against the wall had several copies of his uniform and underwear thrown in haphazardly. No sign of blood or damage. A yoga mat had been rolled out on the floor. Jun had likely been using it when the announcement had gone out. He wouldn't have been wearing his shoes to do his yoga, and there was no sign of them in the room, not even the telltale smell of sweaty feet. There was another smell in here, one that Jun had attempted to mask with deodorant. The smell of urine. He approached the bed, where the smell was strongest. Hesitantly, he went to peel back the covers when he noticed something else. A sheet of paper peeking out from beneath the pillow. He decided to examine that first, and found the secret Jun had been given by Monokuma. The words on the paper simply read 'This student stole money from their mother's purse as a child'. It didn't seem worthy of murder. He tucked it back beneath the pillow, gripped the edge of the duvet between thumb and forefinger and peeled it back from the mattress.
Brown stain. The bedwetting secret Mori had been left with belonged to Jun. That coupled with the secret Jun received suggested he lacked motive to perform such a brutal killing. That would be important to mention at the trial. Embarrassing Jun by admitting to everyone that he'd pissed himself was definitely preferable to letting him get blamed for murder and having them all killed for it.
There didn't seem to be anything else of note to examine in Jun's room, but Mori doubted he was the culprit. Someone had certainly clumsily attempted to frame him, however. Frowning, Mori began to turn away, to leave the room, when something struck him hard on the back of the head.
It was like someone had hit him with all their strength. His knees buckled and he fell forward, sprawling on the bed. His face was lying in the piss stain, but that was the least of his concerns. Someone had attacked him while he was investigating. The same person who had killed Nolan?
He had to move, to get out of there, but his vision was already fuzzing over, his body refusing to cooperate. Through the haze, he saw someone. Small, smaller than him, a blur of black and white cloth and white hair, a bloodied baseball bat in her hands.
"Hi...ro...?" He tried to ask, to call out, to do anything, but he wasn't sure any noise escaped his mouth. Realising the single strike hadn't done the job, Hiro swung the bat again, hitting the same point on his head, cracking his skull.
Mori wasn't sure if he died at that point, or if he just lost consciousness. He didn't know if Hiro continued to bash his skull in, or if she was merciful enough to stop once his life had slipped away.
He'd been sure he'd been alone in that room, would never have expected someone to even have the balls to try and kill the Ultimate Hitman among them. He'd let his guard down like an idiot.
Someone else would have to figure out who killed The Hanged Man.
((This was originally meant to focus much more on Nolan's death and murder, but, uh, I got sidetracked...instead, I might write a second part that focuses on Nolan and the one who actually killed him. Nolan and Kai belong to a friend of mine.))
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