Chapter Text
Kaede feels the guilt in her eating her from within her own mind. She knows that she’s about to do something horrible. She looks at Shuichi for a moment. Sometimes she thinks about whether she should have told him her plan. She was scared that he’d hate her for even considering murder, he is a detective after all. But then again, he might try to justify her actions just like that case he mentioned solving.
“Akamatsu-San, can you take the receiver? I want to go check something quickly..If the receiver goes off don’t wait for me and check things out”
“A~alright” Kaede takes the receiver from his hand and watches him head off. She decides to distract herself by cleaning the classroom a bit. She just hoped that she would succeed so that she could get them all out… She did consider the possibility of taking an innocent life by accident, she decided that she would accept her fate if that were to happen but still fight to find the mastermind.
~~~
Rantaro is in the library, he knows that the mastermind's hiding spot is here. He knows it’s behind that bookshelf. But what he didn’t know was that he wasn’t the only one.
“Amami-Kun? What are you doing here?” He heard a voice call out. He turned around and saw Shuichi.
“..I suppose I wasn’t the only one who figured out the secret door..? Correct?”
“Huh? You knew?”
“Yeah, I also noticed the dust on the reader smart move Saihara”
“Thanks..I guess” Shuichi had entered the room by now. “Oh be careful by the way”
“Why is that?” Shuichi points towards some cameras. Rantaro had noticed them just before hearing Shuichi call out to him.
“So that’s why there's cameras here?”
“Yeah, me and Akamatsu-San are trying to catch the mastermind she’s waiting for me in the classroom upstairs heh”
“Ah, so Akamatsu-San is in on this plan?”
“Yeah and I guess in a way Iruma-San is too but we didn’t actually explain to her what we needed the cameras for..” The slow conversation took a halt when something seemed to set off the receiver. It wasn’t even that much longer before a shot-put ball rolled down through a vent, almost hitting one of them in the head.
“Something tells me Akamatsu had a different plan in mind..” Rantaro pointed out, picking up the shot-put ball and showing a pink fiber attached to it.
“Huh? I never even saw her take that from the warehouse..that’s odd….now that I think about it… she did seem to be acting really nervous about something…”
“....she should be coming down here soon righ~” Rantaro was cut off when Shuichi shouted about something.
“Amami! The bookcase!” Rantaro saw that the bookcase was indeed open and standing there was Tsumugi Shirogane.
“Hm this is plainly a bad situation.. I was expecting to only see Amami-Kun here..guess I have to scratch this plan” Tsumugi drops her own shot-put ball. Reality hit immediately that had Shuichi not been here, Rantaro would be dead and Kaede would have been framed for it all.
“Also I already have an exisal blocking exits so don’t think I’m gonna let you both expoe me so early…” Tsumugi had a sinister grin. If he didn’t know any better, Rantaro would have assumed she was going to do some sort of villain monologue. He noticed in the corner of his eye Shuichi taking Kaedes' shot-put ball off the floor. Rantaro easily figured out he just had to distract her long enough.
“Look Shirogane-San, trust me just let us go and we’ll keep quiet”
“Why would I even believe that”
“I’m a trustworthy guy you know”
“As if I would trust the guy who’s trying to distract me right now” At that moment Shuichi was about to strike her down with the shot-put ball but unsurprisingly, she easily avoided it. She managed to grab her own and turn the tables on him.
“Sorry about this Saihara but times up” She used the shot-put ball to knock him down, the screens were playing the annoyingly loud promotional video which drowned out the blood splatter. She looked at Rantaro with a sinister grin.
“D-did you just freaking kill him?!”
“No, you did”
…
Kaede saw the receiver had gone off and rushed to go down to the library. On the way she ran into Tenko and Kaito. “Oh hey Akamatsu-San we were just doing a meeting to discuss the motive! Did you want to join us?” Kaito said.
“Sorry Momota! I have to hurry!”
“Tenko is confused on why Akamatsu is in a rush”
“The mastermind! They’re in the library!” She ran in but to her shock….
A dead body was all that lay. “S-Shuichi?! W-What…I…but” She was lost for words. Tears filled her eyes as kneeled down beside him begging and crying for him to be alive. Kaito and Tenko came in right after and the announcement went off. Kaede feared the worst, she feared it was her who killed her own friend.
“Yeesh the detectives are gone already? Puhuhu this is a turn of events! Welp, who did it? Raise your hand.” Kaede couldn’t think straight. She was tempted to raise her hand but she just couldn’t. She was a murderer wasn’t she?
“I did it. '' She turned to see Rantaro Amami raise his hand and take the blame for this crime. For her crime but then she realized something. She looked over and saw that clutched in Shuichi's hand, was….her shot-put ball….and yet next to him…..lay a bloody one. It was clear that she was innocent but she felt guilt nonetheless.
“Ooo the amnesiac kills the detective? Puhuhu how despairing…I was so beary sure if anyone were going to turn on him it’d be his girlfriend….I’m beary much talking about Akamatsu puhuhu..”
“I killed him and I announced it so I get to take my leave now.
“Yeah yeah….but come on! At least tell everyone why you killed the guy”
“He’s smart, but physically? He’s weak, plus he just so happened to walk into the library so technically he just was there at the wrong place at the wrong time.” Kaede couldn’t believe how he sounded. She couldn’t believe this is the person who took her friend away from her. He killed an innocent person and for what? She couldn’t believe it but for once in her life, she only saw red. She punched him in the face with strength she didn’t even know she had.
“I hate you Amami” “He didn’t do anything to you?!”
“Would you rather it have been you?”
“..What”
“You could have been the one to kill him, you know… So maybe you should be thanking me for saving you from an execution we all know you would have gladly taken..”
“...you’re dead to me Amami”
Rantaro left this wretched killing game after “killing” someone so important to Kaede. The only thing that brought her comfort was the simple hat that Shuichi once wore to shield himself from this cruel world. She looked in her bathroom mirror with the hat in her hand. She took a deep breath and placed it on her head before returning to the dining hall with her friends knowing she’d have to resume her life as if it never happened.