u/No_Boss_171

As the students wallow in despair, Tozu laughs heartily to himself, almost like he’s been freed from shackles of some kind. Damon, in a fit of rage, lunges at him, but Desmond and Grace hold him back, reminding him of what happened when Wolfgang tried that same thing. Damon calms himself down (as much as he possibly can, at least) and asks why Tozu is so happy. He gives a simple, yet terrifying answer:

“She was such a controlling boss.”

As you would expect, nobody reacts well to this information. Eva, his boss?! Was she the one who put us all in this situation? 

“Well… considering that Mara killed her, you would all be fine to leave,” Tozu says, “but that would be a much more boring ending than Ms. Tsunaka promised. So I’ll let you go… if you can figure out why you’ve all been brought here.”

Damon starts with the most important point: Tozu’s claim that Eva was the mastermind of the killing game. Cassidy and Jett, however, wonder why she would spend all that time together with them playing obscure fighting games if she was just planning to kill them like Kagamine Len every song he sings in. Grace angrily reminds them what she was: The Ultimate Liar.

Desmond wonders how in the world she got away with that act so long when our Ultimate Talents are literally right there for us to see. Damon tells him something he learned about Eva long ago before any murders happened: Her BS can only be called if anyone REMEMBERS that she’s the Ultimate Liar. Being friendly around people can make them drop their guard around you, as we all know. 

“You say that like you didn’t call Ultimates shit when we were leaving the mock trial-“

“Shut up, Cassidy! I’m trying to make a point here!”

”Welp, you sure did make it…”

Anyway, another issue that Cassidy has, in her own words, is:

“Well if she doesn’t care about us, then what was that 2000s movie ending that we just saw before she got dragged off to die? *Eva impression* Damon, you’re better than I thought you’d be. Bye bye boyfailure.”

“She didn’t say all that…”

“r/woooosh.”

There’s a simple explanation: as Cassidy would probably say, “she had character development”. We’re only human, after all. But what were the beliefs she held before she met Damon? Tozu is happy to oblige. Read this in his voice for a better visualization.

“18 years ago, a star was born - that star being named Eva Tsunaka. But contrary to popular belief, stars don’t shine; they burn. And she was no exception, for she was left to rot in her room all her life! By her own parents, no less! They were executives at a technology company called GENISS, which helped the American government protect classified files. 

Out of fear that their daughter could become a ransom target, they made sure she stayed in her room like Rapunzel, just with shorter and darker hair. She learned everything she knew about the world from that oh-so special world known as the Internet. If you know anything about how well off children are with unrestricted internet access, you’d put it together that they created a monster!

Those glasses she wore all her life didn’t come with a very optimistic cleaning cloth, mind you. She came to some nasty conclusions about those with talent.

‘The talented will always look down on the talentless.’

‘The talented will always be much better off than the talentless.’

‘The talented will always find some rubbish to craft about the system.’

‘And the talented will only ever bring death and destruction to the world.’

And these ideas are what crafted the killing game - she wanted to bury the talented six feet under! You, Damon Maitsu, were the epitome of everything she hated. We could tell from your application. Talking about how you ignored those around you to hone your master debating skills-“

*Cassidy and Jett chuckle to themselves*

“…didn’t earn you lots of points with us. She wanted people like you dead. It’s a good thing we found you when we did.”

Hearing this, Damon breaks internally. Everything he stood for… all these hatred-filled ideals of his… were fuel for this killing game?! But he has no time to process this; there’s still a good question from Jett. How did Eva build enough influence to set this all up?

Well, considering that her parents work at GENISS, and considering all the time she spent learning how to lie from online tutorials, she could just make up some BS to heir parents and they could give her extra access. By the way, Wenona owned GENISS at the time, so that’s how they met. The company helped build the cameras, Tozu Trinkets, and other things like that. Then, she found Tozu and Mara.

Tozu reveals that he is the Ultimate Actor, and Eva needed someone to keep everyone engaged in the game. “I’ve already played a deformed man who lives under an opera house in Paris,” Tozu thought to himself, “so I can do this, too.” But Eva told him it would just be a fun reality show - he never thought it would be real. That’s why he was so happy when she died - he was finally freed from having to watch young people die. 

Mara, on the other hand, is revealed to be the Ultimate Mercenary, with a job that needs no introduction. She was promised great pay; first upfront, and the rest after the killing game was over. But it’s safe to assume judging by how nonchalantly she shot Eva that she did not, in fact, get paid upfront. 

Finally, the most important aspect of her plan: the money to make this all happen. 

“BOURGEOIS SCUM!!!”

“Cassidy, please just shut up…”

Eva found her window of opportunity one day in the form of Wolfgang Akire, who dumped all of his trauma onto her like a certain pharmacist talking to a platypus. Hearing about his family’s compensation from the government flipped a switch in her head, and he was on the team. Unfortunately, he expected special treatment and did not get it, which is why he constantly antagonized Eva. As for Damon, Wolfgang knew Eva’s opinions of Ultimates and just didn’t want him to validate them.

All this information about the killing game plunges the group even further into despair. Everyone starts to connect the dots of why they were targeted by Eva.

Cassidy was targeted because she didn’t care about her unsurprisingly toxic fanbase, only her gaming career.

Jett was targeted because of the fact that he would tinker with his own brother’s dragster to ensure his own victory, which resulted in his brother’s death.

Grace was targeted because the standards she set for herself to succeed involved hating everyone around her, not caring whether she can realistically be the best in the room or not.

Desmond was targeted because he learned how to shoot guns from his father - a bond which, when broken, led him down a dark path. He was Eva’s perfect candidate for a killer - who would escape just to get revenge.

And worst of all - Damon, who judged his classmates the moment he stepped onto the train just because they didn’t meet his expectations. Damon, who took Eva’s reality check to a place it didn’t need to go. Damon, who earned himself the group’s ire because of his spiteful opinions. Damon was targeted because he is the perfect example of an Ultimate who looks down on others, who always had special privileges, who never sees anything wrong with what they do, who brings… destruction… to the world.

Wait, Damon thinks to himself. Who is Eva to talk here? 

She did the exact same things.

Damon, despite the fact that Eva isn’t alive, calls her out on her hypocrisy. She would claim that all Ultimates will do whatever they want to get their way, and she did the exact same things just to get her way! She’s not much better than who she hates! Besides, in her own words before she died, everyone’s developed since then. 

Cassidy’s more wary of the people around her…

Jett’s removed his mask, facing what he did head on…

Grace has been less violent around everyone, finally accepting that she can’t be the best in the room…

Desmond, even without Eloise to support him, has made peace with his father’s death, knowing that he’s made friends who will support him no matter what…

And Damon has come to terms with the fact that he cares about everyone. He finally sees his classmates as equals, even if they aren’t talented in a conventional sense. He sees them as his best friends.

Tozu, however, is not happy with how optimistic everyone is being. Having to watch young people die and pretend to like it has clearly taken a toll on him, and he isn’t having any of it anymore. He starts verbally assaulting Damon, who fires back with everything he has, and it gets more and more heated until-

BANG

A single gunshot. 

Blood dripping… from Tozu’s shoulder.

It could only have been Mara.

She has come to her senses, not letting the despair overtake her like her counterpart. Tozu starts chasing her, and she runs into the elevator to escape. Everyone runs after them (after the elevator returns, of course) and eventually find them on the penthouse, where the fire has spread - fire looking more real than the one enveloping the forest. But it’s covering where the river would be!

“The forest was just an optical illusion,” Tozu says. “but that’s not important. More importantly, where do you think Mr. Akire got all the water to flood the building from? Whatever the case, nothing stopped us from filling it with wood!” 

A massive fight breaks out between everyone working with the academy and the remaining students. However it goes, it ends with Damon hanging onto the edge for dear life, with Tozu dangling from his leg. Mara offers Damon her hand, and at that moment he has to make a decision. Tozu’s pulling pretty hard on his leg, so getting back up would be too difficult. Plus, Tozu could somehow find some way to get back up and everything would just get more complicated. So for the sake of everyone else, Damon makes a decision he would never have thought to make before. 

He lets go, and he and Tozu fall into the flames below.

A helicopter comes to rescue the survivors, and Mara turns herself in to the police for her involvement in this whole affair. Meanwhile, the winds of change begin to blow for future Ultimates.

Desmond Hall…

Grace Madison…

Jett Dawson…

And Cassidy Amber.

Forever changed by the horrors they bore witness to, these four students found the Damon Maitsu Foundation, promising to teach those with talent how to get along with each other and how to see others around you as equals. Their main goal is to make sure nobody goes down the same path as Eva ever again. Because those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

THE END

The group’s morale is at an all time low. Wolfgang’s tried and failed yet again to cover for a killer, all because he hates everyone (and himself) just that much. Nobody thought he could get this bad, and he’s about to get even worse.

Tozu, not caring whatsoever for the plight of the group, has a new area open, which he claims to be the final area. It includes:

-A penthouse with a view resembling that picture Damon and Eva got from the tree back when everyone was still alive. Is this actually the outside world? Is it all on fire? The trees look unharmed, somehow…

-A weed garden with artificial lighting and sprinklers that switch on every day at 4:20 AM and PM. Cassidy and Jett would make a joke about that if they were in a better mood

-A morgue used to store everyone’s bodies. Grace, who is especially sensitive to smells, faints almost immediately. Not as tough as she lets on, clearly

-And perhaps the creepiest, a room with a singular table. Lying on it is a file reading: “Project Eden’s Garden”

Damon opens the file, and gets a LOT of information from it. When the U.S. began aiding the Afghan mujahideen in 1979, every student from Eden’s Garden was heavily sheltered in the academy out of fear that the Soviets would attack them. The students were not warned about this or told why this was happening, and so they started losing their minds. Suddenly, the body of Cara Koskinen appeared in the janitor’s closet. From there, it was anarchy, and the students continued to slaughter each other until only one remained: Edward Akire, the Ultimate Violinist. He was rescued from the academy and his family was well compensated for the incident, but he was left with serious PTSD. 

Wolfgang, who was standing behind Damon the whole time, identifies Edward as his father. He adds that Edward met his wife, Theresa, a few years later at the end of the millennium. Together, they created Wolfgang, and everything was fine until he turned four, when Edward had a PTSD attack that led him to kill Theresa. Ever since then, Wolfgang’s lived off his family’s compensation, but it hasn’t helped him in the slightest. He has no control over his life whatsoever, and he hates it all. This is why he acts so controlling over everyone - to reclaim the control of his life that he never had. Having said too much, he leaves. 

Damon shares this information with everyone else, who feel a LITTLE bit of sympathy, but know that there were many other things he could’ve done to cope without trying to get everyone killed. Grace, out of anger, suggests that they all just throw him off the penthouse, but Desmond points out that he would want that, and we can’t give him what he wants. However, Cassidy and Jett rebut that everyone putting in an equal amount of effort to throw him off would leave no one killer, meaning Tozu will have to decide what to do. Eva, with her prediction skills, predicts that Tozu will let them all leave. And again - she COULD be lying, but everyone just wants to leave really bad. And besides, she hasn’t tried to kill everyone, unlike Wolfgang.

There’s just one problem, Desmond says - one part of him might want to die, but the other part might realize that they’re taking control of him and fight back. So how would we make him not care? Oh, yeah… the WEED GARDEN. 

Now, the question is: Who would distract him and lead him to the garden? Desmond offers to do so, telling more people aside from Damon and Eloise that he’s had thoughts of vengeance ever since his father was killed by a gang, so he and Wolfgang might bond over their shared anger. Well, not really a BOND, since it’s gonna end with him dying. “Just replace the D with a G, I guess…” says Cassidy. The plan will begin that night.

But whatever. Two Free Time Events go by (both of which have Wolfgang and Desmond hanging out) and the plan begins. Everyone is more worried about the plan this time, since last time it ended with Ingrid and Toshiko dying, but Desmond says that Wolfgang understands him more now, so it should go sort of swimmingly. Before he leaves to go get Wolfgang, he gives a little speech.

“Even if I don’t return, I still have faith in you all. We’ve improved as human beings, and we’ve fought and defeated obstacles that no normal people would win against. And what’s even better? We had no reason to try. This shouldn’t matter to me, but it does. I’ll believe in myself and every one of you. I’ll fight for you and keep you all alive. Trust me.”

He leaves, and everyone goes to bed. They are all planning to wake up early again to grab Wolfgang and throw him off the penthouse, but when they wake up and head to the garden in the morning…

…they find Wolfgang Akire dead.

Nobody in the room has any idea how to feel about this. Sure, he created problems for everyone all because he couldn’t find a better way to control his life, but everyone was planning to make his defeat a team effort. Someone had to throw a wrench in the plan, and nobody knows why! Looks like we’ll need to figure that out.

Damon, with more fear than ever, begins the investigation. He obtains clues including but not limited to:

-First, he gets the Tozu Tablet, which claims that he was killed by a sharp object in his back sometime at either 4:20 PM last night or 4:20 AM this morning

-Grace points out that the door was locked - again. Desmond saw this, was like “okay guess not” and immediately went back to his room

-The murder weapon is quickly found - an arrow. Does it belong to Desmond?

-Wolfgang’s back is completely dry, despite the fact that the murder happened sometime before either 4:20 AM or PM, since we didn’t see him when we started the plan. Why is this weird? Remember the sprinklers - they go off at both 4:20s every day. He would’ve been soaked

-The cannabis plants haven’t withered any, so the sprinklers (and artificial light) must have been keeping them alive 

-Cassidy notes that until this morning, there were 15 plants on the table. Now, there are only 14. Could one have been used…?

-A locker is open, containing some fertilizer bags and… a bag of arrows. Desmond still has another bag around his shoulder, so which bag did the arrow that killed Wolfgang come from?

-Also in the locker is a key of some kind. Eva is looking intently at it for some reason

-Eva claims that last night, she was looking around the academy for anything that could sabotage the plan. She used a “secret tool” of Tozu’s to get into any potentially locked rooms. In case you’re about to say she’s lying, Desmond claims he saw her

-To clear up any confusion, Jett sets up a timeline of what happened:

• Either before 4:20 PM last night or before 4:20 AM this morning, Wolfgang was killed.

• At about 5:00 PM last night, the plan for Desmond to get high with Wolfgang got underway.

• The next morning at about 7:30 AM, everyone ran to the garden and found Wolfgang dead.

Now that we have all this, the class trial begins. Everyone immediately side-eyes Desmond, since after all, the murder weapon was an arrow, which he has a bag of around his shoulder. Cassidy, with her math skills, points out that Desmond had 30 arrows in his bag before this morning, and he still has all 30. So it couldn’t have been him.

Desmond doesn’t know who else could have gotten into the LOCKED room, so… no suspects? Hm. Well… what have we seen recently that would allow you to get inside a locked room? That’s right: Tozu’s Fancy System of Innumerable Elevators. But who could’ve accessed it? Nobody was out and about, only Desmond…

…and…

…and Eva Tsunaka?

Damon, despite how much he doesn’t want to, names Eva as the one who killed Wolfgang. Nobody has any idea what to make of that. Sure, she’s a little suspicious, what with her “Ultimate Liar” title, but so far she’s only used said title against Tozu and not her classmates. The only time she sort of used it against her classmates was when she gave Wolfgang the picture from the tree, and even then she thought she was doing the right thing. Why would she go behind all of our backs now?

“Besides”, Eva says, “you still haven’t decided whether he was killed last night or this morning”. Grace proposes that they use Wolfgang’s back to figure that out. He was completely dry, which Eva attributes to them having turned off. However, Grace didn’t see them as having withered any, so the water must have simply evaporated. Eva, with nowhere to turn, throws you into the hardest Argument Altercation yet to make this relatively short trial go on a lot longer (I wanted the chapters’ lengths to correspond with the number of FTEs). Eventually, she is forced to give up and everyone votes for her.

She doesn’t say at all why she murdered Wolfgang. All she says is: “Figure it out after I’m dead”. But she does say a few other things, specifically to Damon:

“When I first met you… I didn’t like you. You were the embodiment of Ultimates to me, and I hated Ultimates. Always looking down upon those around you, not caring what anyone else thinks. But then… you softened a bit, and I started to like you a little more. You started involving others in your quest to escape, and many times you showed concern for other human lives when at no point did you ever need to. Did you need to build that tower? No, but you did. Did you need to run in and stab Tozu and Mara with us? No, but you did. Did you need to make killing Wolfgang into a team effort? No… but you did. You’ve grown… far greater than I expected. You embody what an Ultimate SHOULD be. Congratulations, Damon.”

With this, she is dragged off to a dark room where she sits alone. One after another, people walk in mocking her, and she is given a sword to slash them all with. She makes it through all of them, and then… she is left with nowhere else to go. Everyone who attacked her is now dead. She falls to her knees, and Mara walks up behind her, aiming her rifle at Eva… and then shooting her in the head. 

Everyone is rather sad, but none more so than Cassidy and Jett, who actually bonded with her through obscure fighting games. Tozu walks up besides Mara and says something… interesting, to say the least.

“And now… it’s our turn.”

SURVIVING STUDENTS

• Damon
• Desmond
• Jett
• Grace
• Cassidy

For his departed friends of the past, like Tommy, and his departed friends of the present, like Mark, Jett now walks the halls of the academy without his mask, looking forward with untainted eyes to a future filled with hope. Of course, that hope can’t last forever. Not with the standards that have already been set. 

Tozu, in the spirit of keeping tradition, opens up a new area including:

-A stage for either concerts or musicals (Jett remarks that Mark would’ve hated this. It woulda really left a mark- okay I’ll stop)

-A pharmacy with a few different over-the-counter options that you can buy with your Marabucks 

-And perhaps the most interesting new area, the security room. This is where Tozu and Mara monitor the students, and he also shows them his fancy elevator system to pop in and out of places

With this, the students wonder to themselves if they could potentially double-team Tozu and Mara. Grace, deciding to finally be important, announces that she will formulate a plan, since she hates those two more than anyone else.

Two Free Time Events later, everyone meets in the hall, since there are no security cameras through that way. Grace asks if anyone has any ideas, at which Toshiko reveals that she has CVID, which explains why she hides her mouth behind the fan (not that it really works, but hey, she only pretended to know the words the doctor was saying when she was diagnosed).

Grace suggests that she could uncover her face, making her catch… “a cold. I don’t fucking know! You’re the one who has it!” Then, she need only cough around Tozu and Mara, leading them to need medicine for it. Eva suggests that with her talent of Ultimate Liar, she could offer Tozu and Mara medicine from the pharmacy of some kind, but wouldn’t you know it, she swapped whatever they got for melatonin pills! They’ll go to bed faster, and then everyone’s gonna go in like Brutus’s gang and give them 28 STAB WOUNDS!

Damon has lots of problems with this plan. Firstly, he questions whether Eva will be able to pull off her “melatonin in a DayQuil bottle” trick, since Tozu and Mara KNOW that she’s the Ultimate Liar. However, Eva, with her extra knowledge of basic cause and effect, predicts that they’re not gonna take any chances by questioning her. Being sick is annoying - they’ll want it gone, no matter who’s giving them the chance to treat it.

Damon accepts this, but he is still worried. The plan will commence tomorrow night - he goes to bed that night, tossing and turning. The next morning, he meets with everyone in the dining hall - one of the sweetest meetings he’s had, by the way - and then two Free Time Events later, everyone meets up for the plan.

This is where Damon expresses his worries for Toshiko. She’s only 14, and they’re gonna send her off alone to use her immune disorder that could possibly give her asthma! With that in mind, what she says next… well, I can’t just type a summary of what she says. I gotta give you the whole thing.

“W-Whatever happens to me… I would like you all to know that getting to know you all has been so… so rewarding for my personal growth. I didn’t get to see much of the world by myself, what with my mother constantly using me to help her friends in their romantic pursuits. I only ever saw the ways of people much, much older than me. But being here with others closer to my age… it’s given me a new perspective. Some of you… need help - I’m looking at you, Wolfgang.”

“Hey…!”

“Let her talk, soybean.”

“But anyway… some of you have BEEN the help that I needed. Ingrid… You’ve *sniff* You’ve treated me as a person and not just a tool. When… *sniff* When you taught me how to use the sledgehammer to build that tower… It was fun! I had legitimate fun! Thank you…”

“My… my gosh, Toshiko, I - I didn’t know how much of an effect I had on you! But know that *sniff* if you’re the only person to survive this killin’ game, it won’t matter to me. You deserve the world, Toshiko…”

They hug each other, to the crocodile tears of Cassidy and Jett. Grace also has tears falling out, but she attributes them to onions being cut. With this, Toshiko and Eva leave to do what must be done. Everyone walks back to their rooms and goes to bed with hope that soon, they can be freed from this nightmare.

The next morning, Damon wakes up earlier than usual, since the plan is for them to attack before Tozu and Mara have their coffee or whatever wakes them up. Everyone’s there except Ingrid, which is weird, but no matter. We’ve got a job to do. Everyone grabs a kitchen knife and runs up to the security office to find Tozu and Mara FULLY AWAKE.

“Well done getting nothing done, my star pupils! Who am I to talk, anyway? I spent the whole night sleeping deeper than usual. Well, actually… you did get ONE thing done. She’s lying in her bedroom right now as we speak.”

Everyone is horrified at the implication of those words, so they run back down to her room. The door is jammed, so Damon has to kick it open, which allows everyone to find the body…

…of Ingrid Grimwall.

Toshiko immediately breaks into tears, since Ingrid was like a mother to her. And after that talk they had last night? That makes this all the worse for everyone. Even Damon sheds a tear - this was terrible. But, of course, this means that someone murdered her. And we need to find out who.

Damon and Eva start the investigation, obtaining clues including but not limited to:

-First they get the Tozu Tablet, which has no earthly clue how she could’ve died, since there are NO WOUNDS ANYWHERE on Ingrid. Literally the only thing is the pool of blood and that’s it

-Desmond notes the broken chair near Ingrid’s door, implying that the door was jammed with said chair. This means we could potentially be dealing with a locked-room mystery

-Diana’s makeup bag is found next to Ingrid’s body. Did she come back to life?! No, that’s ridiculous… The most plausible explanation is that Ingrid or someone else took it from her room

-Wolfgang brings attention to a few shards of broken glass lying around. They must have come from a bottle of some kind. Could that bottle potentially be the murder weapon?

-As Wolfgang stands up after kneeling to look at the glass shards, Grace calls him out for having a medicine bottle sticking out of his back pocket. Now wasn’t Eva supposed to be handling that? 

-Eva herself said she ended up falling asleep last night from the exhaustion of not being able to do anything. Yeah, she might be lying, but Toshiko, who is unwilling to tell anyone what happened in the security room for some reason, notes that she saw Eva sleeping in the pharmacy

With that, the class trial begins. Eva accuses Wolfgang of having killed Ingrid by drugging her with that good stuff that Grace found hanging out of his pocket, and then inflicting the deadly blow with that glass bottle. Cassidy points out (and Wolfgang angrily reiterates) that the bottle might be a red herring, but it’s the only lead we’ve got, so we might wanna stick to it for now.

Jett, however, notes that when everyone was building the tower (with the intention of ESCAPING), Wolfgang did not try to get everyone killed or sabotage the construction efforts. So why would we now accuse Wolfgang of trying to get everyone killed or sabotage our efforts of killing Tozu and Mara (with the intention of ESCAPING)? To simplify, he didn’t have a problem last time, so why would he have a problem now?

Wait a minute… On the topic of Tozu and Mara, Damon remembers something the former said before they found Ingrid’s body:

“Who am I to talk, anyway? I spent the whole night sleeping deeper than usual.”

Did Wolfgang… put Tozu and Mara to sleep last night? 

“But wait,” says Eva. “Not to defend him, but how would I have noticed? I was in charge of the pharmacy. Surely, he didn’t sneak up behind me; there’s only one entrance to that place.”

Well, judging by the fact that Eva fell asleep, maybe there’s something to it. She attributed it to exhaustion, but… maybe it was more. Maybe Wolfgang drugged her, too! Now THAT sounds intentional. But she still doesn’t remember her seeing him. How would he just pop up behind her? 

Wait… pop up behind her? 

This brings Damon back to when everyone first found the security room and Tozu gave them all this interesting bit of information:

“This is my fancy system of innumerable elevators! All I have to do is rush over to my desired elevator, push the button inside, and away I go to a different world! The best part? Nobody expects it! That’s because they’re hidden in the least expected places. Like right behind you!”

Could Wolfgang have used the elevator system to pop up behind Eva and drug her? Wait, but if he had access to the elevator system, then that would give him access to - gasp! Ingrid’s room! Holy smokes, it’s all falling into place! Wolfgang killed Ingrid! 

He willingly accepts his defeat, but something feels wrong about it. He’s almost adamant you vote for him. Damon picks up on this, and accuses Wolfgang of not murder, but covering for someone. This wouldn’t be the first time, what with the incident involving Kai. So… who could he be covering for? 

Eva suddenly has an epiphany: maybe it’s related to the murder weapon. “But what murder weapon?” Grace asks. “We’ve already said it was that glass bottle!” But now that we have more leads, we can more accurately call it a red herring. So… how could we figure out the murder weapon? What have we not talked about yet? 

Well, there’s the matter of the chair that jammed the door, and the matter of the late Diana’s makeup bag lying there. Toshiko suddenly suggests that maybe it was applied to Ingrid to hide her wound! With that in mind, the would could only appear somewhere with exposed skin, since makeup can’t hide torn clothing. So Mara brings in Ingrid’s body (Toshiko starts crying while Cassidy and Jett faint) and wipes every exposed part of her skin. There is one thing found… a circular bruise on her forehead. Circular? It couldn’t have come from the chair, so that can’t be it. Hmm…

Eva, however, calls attention to the circular shape, likening it to something you would get from a sledgehammer. Wait a minute - A SLEDGEHAMMER?!

WAS IT TOSHIKO KAYURA?!

The room erupts into absolute chaos. Wolfgang insists with the persistence of Kaito Momota that Toshiko did nothing, making for the most annoying Argument Altercation thus far. Unfortunately, since Toshiko was sent to the security room to infect Tozu and Mara, she had access to the elevator system as well. With this, Toshiko admits that she killed Ingrid. She is voted for by all, and the vote is correct.

Desmond asks Toshiko why she would do this to Ingrid - someone she was crying for last night! Toshiko coldly replies “It was Wolfgang.” No surprise there, but… how?

Wolfgang explains everything: he had found where the elevator was in his room (it was his wardrobe), and he pried it open with… something, it’s not really important anymore. He took the elevator back to the security room, and then quickly pocketed more sleep medicine before Eva arrived. He found the elevator behind the counter and hid in there until she arrived, at which point he drugged her, went back in, and returned to the security room to use it on Tozu and Mara. This is when Toshiko arrived.

“W-Wolfgang?”

“Why, hello, Ms. Kayura.”

“Did you… already do Eva’s job?”

“Why, yes. Now, listen… I’ve got a proposition for you.”

“Hmph. As if I would listen to a loaded god complex like you.”

“Cock it and pull it, Ms. Kayura. Just hear me out.”

“…Alright.”

“What if… you killed Ingrid?”

“W-WHAT?!”

“M-Ms. Kayura, please calm down-“

“You just told me to murder someone who, in hindsight, is a much better mother than my biological mother! How could I possibly be calm?!”

“Didn’t she say earlier that she’d be fine if only you survived?”

“I mean… yes, but-“

“Don’t question this. You’ll get to leave, and live more of the life you’ve never had. Besides, I’m still a failure. I don’t deserve to live, and none of these people do, either. The way they all run from their inevitable and very deserved fates.”

“Well… you ARE a failure, and I have longed for the feeling of the outside world as a normal girl. Free from society’s expectations… Free from my job of having to dictate people’s romantic pursuits… so now that I think about it, your proposition doesn’t sound all that bad. I accept.”

When Wolfgang said he’d do it again, he wasn’t kidding. And what’s worse? He couldn’t keep his promise to Toshiko. All that work to get himself killed again for nothing. Toshiko will have to pay the price (yes, Tozu would even kill a child). She is put on top of a car for a parade like a homecoming queen, and then trampled by all the people, the same way she’s been trampled by everything all her life.

Everyone breaks down into tears, filled with despair at an innocent little girl’s death. All because of that lawyer. Grace kicks him in the groin, she’s so mad. And she’s never aimed there before. 

“Why… the fuck… do you have to be… so CONTROLLING?! Why do you have to act like the whole damn world revolves around you?! What’s in it for you?!”

“You don’t understand… Ms. Madison. My whole life… I’ve NEVER been in control. My father killed my mother when I was four, I was forced to go to law school by my grandparents, which I had to DROP OUT of actual high school for, and everyone else treated me like a little kid, always… kicking me around, and my grandparents REFUSED to give me any more money despite EVERYTHING the government gave them to raise me, AND IT JUST - URAAAAAAAGH!”

…

“Huff… Huff… Don’t you get it? I’ve never been in control. Not then…”

He looks at Eva for some reason.

“…and not NOW.”

SURVIVING STUDENTS

• Damon
• Eva
• Desmond
• Wolfgang
• Jett
• Grace
• Cassidy

Jett has completely shut down since Mark’s death last chapter, refusing to join Cassidy in her antics. It’s really disheartening for everyone, including Damon. Not only that, but Wolfgang tried to get everyone murdered last chapter with the whole pool flooding thing, so that’s also pretty bad.

But we can’t stay sad forever - of course Tozu’s opened up a new area for us! It includes:

-A room with a pool table. And yeah, that’s it. Tozu does promise something if you challenge someone to a game and win, though

-An art room with a picture on the wall of a random man’s mugshot. He looks suspiciously similar to Wolfgang - and Wolfgang himself notices, as he stares at it with raw anger in his eyes

-And a physics lab with an air purifier almost as tall as the fake tree. There is also a closet with building materials, which will be important right about…

Now.

Jean is in the closet, and he sees an opportunity. The physics lab has a skylight, and if they build a tower surrounding the air purifier, the students could reach it, break it, and everyone could make their escape. Eva commends him for his creativity, to which Jean replies “Hah! I didn’t spend all that time in a storage container for nothing, now did I? Ahahaha!”

Ulysses, however, has words of warning for Jean; by “words of warning”, I mean he just invokes the Tower of Babel. Jean, however, is certain he can make it up there. He sees everyone as his crew, and as his old captain said: “Your crew is your family.” He took this to heart after a member fell off the side of his crab boat from a bad wave.

Two Free Time Events later, everyone is building that tower Jean suggested they build. Damon, however, has other plans; he wants to know what’s up with that pool table. Unfortunately for him, Wenona is there waiting. And he’s had to debate her before - she’s one tough opponent. Luckily, Cassidy (whose ADHD took over) decided to hop over and see what was up. She appoints herself as Damon’s personal cheerleader, to everyone’s annoyance (Jett’s also there sitting in the corner like Shinji).

Fast forward a bit, and the game is coming close to its conclusion. All that’s left is the 8-ball and the 15-ball (Wenona has striped). Damon, by a stroke of luck, manages to cause a ricochet… and victory is his. For his victory, he earns a piece of paper from the slot he had to put a Marabuck in. It’s a picture of a man probably in his early thirties, reading:

“Jesse R. Wilhelm

Senior United States Senator from Virginia

2003”

“Wait a minute… Wilhelm?”

Since there’s only one person Damon knows with the last name Wilhelm (that person’s first name being Ulysses), he approaches Ulysses to ask about it. He says that Jesse is his father, and yes, also a U.S. senator from Virginia. He explains that his interest in history began when his father would take him to the National Museum of American History, where he learned about the policies and leadership skills of past leaders, eventually comparing them to his own father. He came to the conclusion that all his father wanted was power, and is now preying on his downfall.

With this new information, Damon decides to rest, glad that his classmates are willing to be honest with him about their personal lives. Yeah, they may be lying, but the only people who really concern him are Wolfgang and Eva. Especially Eva, since she’s the Ultimate Liar (but hey, at least she didn’t try to drown everyone).

The next day, Damon decides that now that he’s unlocked the secret of the pool table, he’s gonna join in on Jean’s little construction project. On his way there, however, he sees Wolfgang, who says these ominous words:

“You’re all one group of people, with one common goal in mind, and this is only the first real plan you’ve made to reach it. And once you reach it, nothing will be impossible… for any of you.”

With a sort of happy face, he accompanies Damon to the physics lab. Everyone is hard at work (the tower’s about 25% of the way finished) and Cassidy, who has nothing else to do, is actually doing something useful for once (if you don’t count jumping up and down, shaking pom-poms, and chanting “BARGAIN BIN! BARGAIN BIN!” as useful). 

Oh yeah, and Ingrid is teaching Toshiko how to use a sledgehammer, despite Desmond’s objections. She talks about a girl she met online named Joan who would be her striker, and since she’s been locked in Eden’s Garden Academy, she hasn’t gotten to see her again; Toshiko fills the hole in her heart. “I don’t care what nobody’s gotta say,” Ingrid says. “This world’s great nowadays! You just gotta walk a few steps, and you’ll find a friend no matter what’s separatin’ ya!”

With some happiness in his life now, Damon decides to do three more Free Time Events, and then go to bed. The next morning, that happiness is destroyed; someone stole the building materials. It is unknown who, but until that person is found, construction on the tower cannot continue. Damon and Eva, having done this before, start squeezing everyone for information. They turn up nothing, and return to their rooms exhaustedly. He wakes up late the next morning, and hears those five words that he has heard twice before:

“A body has been discovered!”

He and Eva look everywhere until they get to the physics lab, where they find the body…

…of Ulysses Wilhelm.

Damon and Eva are horrified, but Ingrid immediately tells them that he had the building materials, so that makes matters a LITTLE better. Not by much, though, since he’s… well… yeah. Dead.

She then tells them that someone, either Ulysses or his killer, sealed the top of the tower with the materials. Damon goes up to the top and doesn’t find anything up there, so maybe… it’s there to hide something inside the tower. Ingrid, however, has a whole-ass plasma cutter in her room, so she runs off to get it while Damon gives an internal eulogy for the departed Ultimate Historian. She returns, and cuts a hole in the tower, revealing ANOTHER BODY…

…belonging to Jean DeLamer.

Two very smart and outspoken people, taken from us before our eyes. But we can’t mourn them forever - we need to solve their murders. Okay Damon and Eva get clues including but not limited to:

-First they get the Tozu Tablet for both victims, who both have a bruise on the back of their heads. The cause of death isn’t explicitly stated, but whatever happened, their heads got hit a little too hard

-Then they examine the top of the tower which was sealed. The stairs going up have three clear sets of shoe prints. Eva gets everyone’s shoes and does a comparison of the prints, but they’ll need time to soak into place on the paper she used

-Grace didn’t give up her search for the thief until late last night when the murder happened. The door to the physics lab had apparently been locked, and she could hear an argument going on. She was feeling drowsy, so she couldn’t make out their voices

-Btw I forgot to mention, Cassidy’s been missing this whole investigation. They find her trapped in the art room closet next door with a bloody hammer

-Desmond finds a note in Jean’s room reading “Hello, Mr. DeLamer. I’m the thief, and I apologize for my lack of foresight on this matter. I get a little paranoid when it comes to repeating past mistakes. Please come to retrieve the necessary materials at 10:00 PM tonight.” This proves that Ulysses and Jean met last night

With that, the class trial begins. The first suspect is Cassidy since one, a possible murder weapon was there with her in the art room closet, WITH BLOOD ON IT, mind you. Two, she had a vantage point to hit Jean from: the stairs on the tower. Three, nobody’s seen or heard from her since last night. So yeah, this is pretty bad…

…but Damon reminds everyone that Grace was out and about last night, and the door to the physics lab was locked with two people arguing inside. He asks if any of the voices were female, and Grace says “no, they were both male”. With that in mind, Cassidy could not have been in the physics lab. However, a long segment ensues where everyone presents possible ways that Cassidy could have killed them and then trapped herself in the art room closet. Wolfgang makes one especially interesting case: she tunneled herself through the floor with the tools from Ingrid’s room. 

It sounds ridiculous at first, but then he reminds everyone that Jean’s body was covering a large portion of the floor, and could be hiding a hole. Ingrid could potentially lift him, since she’s only 12 pounds lighter than him, but Tozu says “nuh uh, you ain’t leaving”, so they can’t really check. This leaves Damon in a tough spot…

…and then Jett, with his weak voice, says “Where would she get out…?”

Jett, with no light to be found in his voice whatsoever, asks where Cassidy would exit. They didn’t find any OTHER holes around the academy, after all. Besides, Ingrid always keeps track of the things in her room, and last night, she had everything. Wolfgang is forced to drop the idea, and we are back to zero suspects.

But wait! We still have the shoe print test Eva did, which has to have soaked in by now. They find three pairs that match:

Ulysses Wilhelm,

Jean DeLamer…

…and Wenona.

Damon accuses Wenona of having killed Ulysses and Jean. Wenona claps back by insisting that the murder weapon was the bloody hammer, which was trapped in the art room closet with Cassidy. If she put it there before trapping Cassidy, someone could’ve walked by and the whole plan would be ruined. So Cassidy had to have been carrying it around! 

Toshiko, however, notes that the floor leading from the physics lab to the art room was clean except for the pools of blood around Ulysses and Jean. If she was carrying a bloody hammer that distance, said blood would’ve fallen and tracked across the floor. So it couldn’t be that… but what if there was no weapon? 

Damon proposes that Ulysses and Jean may have simply fallen. Their shoe prints were ON the tower, and falling from that height wouldn’t end well no matter what happened to you afterwards. This leaves Wenona as the only other person up there with them who could’ve pushed them.

Wenona, as I’ve said before, is one tough opponent. She has one last question: She had a motive to kill Ulysses (she was in there with Damon when he got that picture of his father), but why Jean? What did he ever do to her? Desmond proposes that… maybe there was no motive. Damon thinks about why this would happen if there wasn’t a motive, and then he remembers:

“Hello, Mr. DeLamer. I’m the thief, and I apologize for my lack of foresight on this matter. I get a little paranoid when it comes to repeating past mistakes. Please come to retrieve the necessary materials at 10:00 PM tonight.”

What if Ulysses wrote that note to call Jean to the physics lab and kill him?

This idea leaves Wenona with no further defenses, and she is forced to admit her guilt. Everyone votes for her, and is correct.

Wenona gives a big lore drop: she has been lobbying the United States Congress to make sure regulations are kept in check. One of these politicians in her pocket is Jesse R. Wilhelm, the father of Ulysses Wilhelm. She was there to hear about his dislike of his father, so she thought to herself:

“If that boy escapes, which would mean my death, he might do something to his father. And I’ve trusted my sister with the business if anything happens, but if Senator Wilhelm is out of the picture, then so is ours.”

She needed things to go her way, and so that’s what she decided. She hung out with Ulysses for the next two days to figure out what his plans were every day, and that’s how she learned of his plans to kill Jean. And there… was her window of opportunity. She’s never been one to pass up a window of opportunity. Just look at what she did to her people and their land to get where she is now.

Cassidy and Jett start judging her for using people to get her way (and also being a capitalist 🌙🔨) but then Wenona says:

“Oh, you’re gonna get mad at ME? Out of everyone here? Not at Eva?”

“Hey, why are you bringing my bestie into this?! What did she do?!”

“Oh, darling. If you knew what she did to get where she is now, you wouldn’t like her any more than me.”

At that, Tozu begins the execution without warning. Before she gets dragged off, however, she says this to Eva:

“GENISS isn’t gonna be very happy about this.”

She then gets dragged off to receive 28 STAB WOUNDS from a crowd of people dressed as the members of her tribe.

Jett then starts crying, talking about how he’s no better than Wenona. Remember that accident that put him out of a job? Yeah, a huge portion of that was his fault. He had a little brother named Tommy growing up, and they were both drag racers with a heated rivalry (no, not THAT Heated Rivalry). 

One night at the track, Jett decided to fuck with Tommy’s dragster so that it would crap out and not move, but something FAR worse happened - it flipped, rolled, and then kaboom kablowed. Horrified, Jett rushed over to the car, and saw the remains of his brother. He was then overtaken by guilt and set himself on fire. 

So yeah - he went behind his brother’s back to mess with his dragster and ensure victory for him. Lying to get himself where he is today. That’s no better than Wenona (or Eva, whatever she did). But Cassidy walks over to Jett’s side and says “Hey. Wenona didn’t care about what she did. You obviously do. You’re not on her level.” Everyone slowly starts to surround him with positive words, and he decides to face what he did head-on. His first step? Removing his mask and revealing his scars. 

That’s his first step towards a brighter future. But it doesn’t mean anything… in a killing game.

SURVIVING STUDENTS

• Damon
• Eva
• Desmond
• Toshiko
• Wolfgang
• Jett
• Ingrid
• Grace
• Cassidy

(WARNING: I may or may not have misrepresented impostor syndrome. If I did, just point it out and I’ll take the L. Okay now that I’ve gotten that out of the way…)

The chapter begins with Damon sitting alone in his room, refusing to attend breakfast. He feels guilty for taking that apple and trusting that the Ultimate Liar wouldn’t spread that picture around, especially since it led to a murder. Eva walks in and apologizes to him, with a legitimate look of remorse on her face. Wolfgang also refused to attend, for obvious reasons.

A new area is open to the students, filled with only two new locations this time:

-A pool with gender-divided locker rooms (you have to swipe your Tozu Trinket across a card reader to gain access to them)

-And a library with a book about Eden’s Garden Academy. It was originally built as a shelter during the Cold War to house talented individuals if nuclear war ever broke out, which makes Damon wonder why he never knew about this

Two Free Time Events later, Damon is approached by Cassidy and Jett (Mark’s also there because Jett dragged him out). They noticed from his profile that he dislikes swimming, so they showed up to say something along the lines of “C’mon, Bargain Bin! Step outside of your comfort zone!” He doesn’t want to, but Cassidy threatens to tell everyone he’s gay if he doesn’t (or something like that - whatever would make for a good funny moment). 

Damon immediately fast walks to the pool, where he sees Desmond and Eloise having a swimming competition. He learns there that the two knew each other before the killing game; they were Olympic athletes in shooting and fencing, respectively. They came to the pool out of nostalgia from when they would use their accreditation for the best seats in the house. Damon joins the competition and gets absolutely smoked (since, after all, he HATES swimming). Luckily for him, Mark also gets smoked and says something along the lines of “I suck at everything, don’t I…?”

Damon goes to bed that night feeling angry that Cassidy and Jett made him swim against his will, but he finds it sort of wholesome that Desmond and Eloise were able to reunite, even if it was in a killing game. He also worries about Mark, what with his silent remark. (Hey, that rhymed!)

The next morning, Damon wakes up to hear that Wolfgang is missing, but he’s also not in his room. That obviously scares everyone, and they find him in the new pool, which he has rigged to overfill. He intends to flood the building and drown everyone, which he explains is both an attempt to kill all the Ultimates (he believes they only think about themselves) and to kill himself (he is still broken up by his failure to lead the group).

Everyone tries to stop him and fix the pool, but to no avail. They are left to fear for their lives. Three Free Time Events later, the day ends and transitions to the next morning. The flood has spread to the courtyard, and if left unchecked, it could flow downstairs to the boiler room and flood the already flooded lower floor even further. This could possibly lead to the generator short circuiting and cutting the power to the building. Damon freaks out and spends the rest of the day in his room, but the next morning, he gets a report from Eva that… it’s ended. 

Everyone in the dining hall (Eloise isn’t there) is relieved that they don’t have to worry about the flood anymore, but there is still concern over why it ended. The people still need their breakfast, however, so Desmond offers to go and check on the pool. A few minutes pass, and he hasn’t returned. Damon gets concerned and goes to look for him. He arrives, and Desmond is standing in the boys’ locker room with terror in his eyes. Damon looks into the pool room…

…and finds the body of Eloise Taulner.

Desmond breaks down crying, but Jean gets him back on his feet; we need to solve a murder, after all. As with the last investigation, Damon and Eva find a few important clues, including but not limited to:

-First, they get the Tozu Tablet, which states that Eloise died by drowning in the early hours of the morning

-Damon notices Jett talking to Mark. Apparently, this is the first chance they’ve had to talk in a while. Mark’s been shutting him out to go do something (he won’t say what)

-Mark explains to Damon (SPECIFICALLY Damon, to Jett’s annoyance) that all he does as the Ultimate Music Producer is take an already existing track and add on to it. He doesn’t believe that he is actually good at what he does because of this, so he’s been trying to find other things that he CAN be good at

-Oh yeah, and Mark also has a few bruises on his face

-Eva finds out that Tozu Trinkets CAN be removed, you just have to place your thumbprint across the screen and confirm that you want to remove it. When you do, it will first shock you and then detach 

-Desmond learns from Tozu that Eloise’s Tozu Trinket had been missing since last night, so she would’ve had to use someone else’s Tozu Trinket to gain access to the locker room 

-Desmond also tells Damon and Eva about his past (that he has only ever told Eloise about before); his father was a policeman in a poor neighborhood and was killed by a gang member. He’s had violent thoughts since then, but sharing them with Eloise gave him comfort. He also tells them that Eloise has had struggles of her own with being too defensive and not offensive enough, so she had also been trying to improve in her last days

-Wenona and Ulysses were in the library together last night, but they left before the murder would’ve happened

With that, the class trial begins. Wolfgang and Desmond are the prime suspects since the former was planning to drown someone and the latter was the one who found Eloise’s body… or could’ve only CLAIMED to find it. Damon and Eva, however, are able to cross both of them off of the list after a long and lengthy process.

Damon turns to Wenona and Ulysses, asking them who else was near the crime scene. All Wenona remembers is that it wasn’t a high number of people due to the flooding, but of course Ulysses does, what with that book he carries around. There’s a very convenient page in it, too.

“People Who Walked By Last Night

-Desmond

-Eloise

-Mark

-Wolfgang

-Jett

-Cassidy”

This narrows it down to Mark, Jett, and Cassidy. Damon recalls his conversation with Jett:

“I mean… Broskii hasn’t been a big talker lately.”

“When is he ever a big talker?”

“You’re right, but that’s not what I mean. The first three days we were here, he’d stick around to hear me yap, but after that, he’d be like ‘Can’t talk. Gotta go.’”

Damon reasons that with the time he used to get away from Jett, the one who could have gone to the pool and killed Eloise…

…is Mark “Mayhem” Berskii.

Jett defends his bro with everything he has, but it’s no use. Mark could very well have used his Tozu Trinket to let Eloise in to one of the locker rooms. With this, Jett gives up, and everyone votes for Mark. They are correct.

Mark explains that swimming was one of the things he tried doing since he didn’t think he was a good musician. Eloise, however, had a different opinion.

“You know… before I had to go out on the field, I would listen to your music. It would… get me in the right mood.”

“No, it didn’t…”

“Yes, it would! You’re great at what you do!”

“No, I’m not…!”

“Stop lying to yourself! You’re the Ultimate Music Producer! You’ve got a gift! Please just accept it!”

“NO, I’M NOT-“

And the rest is history. A fight broke out, and Mark barely won.

Back in the present, Jett starts crying, asking Mark why he had to let his negative thoughts overthrow him. Mark keeps putting himself down while Jett keeps pulling him back up, but in the end, Tozu drags him away to play piano for a judgmental crowd. He stops playing when the boos, hisses, and rotten tomatoes swallow him whole, and then the piano, well… swallows him whole!

Jett is torn apart because he “got another bro killed”, and Wolfgang laughs a manic laugh, elated that he was able to plunge these assholes into despair. And he’ll do it again.

SURVIVING STUDENTS:

• Damon
• Eva
• Desmond
• Toshiko
• Wenona
• Ulysses
• Wolfgang
• Jett
• Ingrid
• Grace
• Jean
• Cassidy

Damon and Eva are the outcasts of the group, having said a little too much the day before at the mock trial. Despite their opposition to blind trust, the fact that they were the only TWO people to voice it brings them closer together. Rather inconvenient for the two of them.

As a reward for passing Tozu’s test, a new area of the “academy” is open to the students, complete with:

-A gymnasium with a pachinko machine (you get to see Wolfgang buy a golden sword from it)

-An infirmary

-And a room with a 50’ 4K smart TV

Most notable, however, is that there’s an apple hanging from the big tree. It wasn’t there yesterday, that’s for sure. Everyone wonders how it got there and why it’s even there in the first place, but Wolfgang insists that this is an attempt by Tozu to confuse everyone and that they shouldn’t focus on it. Damon, however, has other plans. 

Two Free Time Events later, night falls upon the building, and Damon sneaks out to grasp the forbidden fruit (at least, forbidden by Wolfgang). However, before he can climb the tree, he hears Eva’s voice. She asks what he’s doing, and when he answers, she admits that she agrees with Wolfgang - it’s only going to lead to more problems. In response, Damon asks her why Wolfgang, despite his claims that he trusts everyone will not succumb to the killing game, continuously side-eyes him and Eva. She is forced to agree, and bites into the apple. In response, a paper flies out of the tree - a picture of the outside world. Burning.

Damon and Eva agree to keep this to themselves, but there’s a reason Eva is called the Ultimate Liar. When Damon is asleep, she puts the picture on Wolfgang’s bedside table. The next day, he isn’t in the dining hall, which makes everyone nervous. They look for him and find him in his room, looking pale-faced with the picture in his hands.

Damon says something along the lines of “Eva, you told me you wouldn’t tell anyone!” which gives them away. Wolfgang first starts crashing out on Tozu for putting that opportunity out in the open, and then Damon and Eva for taking it. Grace, to really hammer it in, prepares to kick the shit out of Eva, but Damon steps in the way and gets knocked out for her. 

He is taken to the infirmary by Eva, where she treats his bruise and he gets mad at both himself for falling for Eva’s lie, and Eva for telling it. She then attempts to explain herself; she is the Ultimate Liar because no matter what she says, the people she talks to will believe her. The only time it doesn’t work is when they are reminded that she’s the Ultimate Liar. This isn’t some kind of magic - she is knowledgeable in the field of psychology and knows exactly what to say, as well as how to say it. 

She is also able to predict the future - not through psychic power, but through experience. She can envision any situation and predict how it will unfold. She knew that the picture would freak Wolfgang out, and given his reaction to Damon and Eva telling the truth, he’s probably not as honest as them, so he wouldn’t spread it around. Even if he didn’t tell anyone, people would wonder where he went and they would inevitably find that picture.

Damon knows he should be mad at her, but he just can’t - after all, Eva believed that the people needed to know the truth. She stuck to herself, unlike Damon, who decided he’d cut back on his honesty after the mock trial. Besides, if she told him her plans, he might’ve tried to stop her. He finds himself admiring Eva for her resilience, and forgives her.

The next day, Diana makes breakfast for everyone to unite the group again, to the delight of Wolfgang. That delight doesn’t last long, however. While everyone talks, Kai starts dunking on Wolfgang for whining about Damon and Eva just doing something he didn’t want them to do. The argument gets heated and Diana tries to break it up, but Grace ends up kicking Kai’s ass so hard that Damon and Eva have to send him to the infirmary. Before he leaves, however, Wolfgang tells him to watch himself.

Two Free Time Events later, nighttime once again flies by. The next morning, Damon wakes up feeling depressed from all the fighting. He just wanted to stop a murder, and in doing so, he made one more likely. The next morning, Diana is missing, so Damon searches her room, which looks like a mess. Her bathroom door is halfway open, so he looks inside…

…and finds the body of Diana Venicia.

He screams, and everyone else is alerted to the room, where they all share a similar reaction to Damon. Tozu appears and confirms that Diana was murdered, which means a class trial will happen soon.

Damon investigates with Eva, and they find a few key pieces of evidence, including but not limited to:

-First, they get the Tozu Tablet, which states that Diana died from a stab wound sometime in the early morning

-There are scratches and gouges all over her walls

-A golden sword is on the floor, taken out of its sheath

-A gold necklace is clutched in Diana’s hand

-The door to the bathroom has been kicked off of its hinges

- A kitchen knife was what killed Diana. Toshiko and Ingrid were in the dining hall when Diana took it

With that information, the class trial begins. Suspicion immediately falls on Wolfgang since Damon saw him buy the golden sword that was found on the floor. Eva, however, point out many inconsistencies with his supposed involvement. Desmond proposes that Diana may have been trying to commit a murder, which is backed up by Toshiko and Ingrid’s account that Diana took the knife from the kitchen. And her intended victim turned killer?

Kai Monteago.

That golden necklace belonged to him, and if you look closely, he hasn’t had it around his neck this whole investigation. Kai then asks: how was he able to defend himself? Well, if he was able to kick a door off its hinges, he must be pretty strong. Strong enough to defend himself against Diana, surely. He is voted for, and everyone is correct. 

Everyone asks Wolfgang why the golden sword was there at the scene. He admits that he couldn’t sleep, and he saw a scratch on the door to Diana’s room while he was dragging himself through the halls. He looked inside, and saw Kai. He asked to be let in, and he found Diana’s body. He was crushed, since all he wanted to do was prevent a murder. Wolfgang felt that he was worth nothing if he couldn’t even do that, so he put the golden sword on the floor to cover up Kai’s crime so he could die with all the other spotless students.

Tozu mocks Wolfgang for doing all that for nothing, reminding him that Kai’s still gonna die. Wolfgang gets super pissed and attacks Tozu, but Mara steps in and shoots him in the shoulder. Kai is then dragged off to a stake, burned by a crowd of people like it’s a witch hunt.

Everyone screams in horror after seeing that, except for Wolfgang who just shuts down. He says only seven words to Tozu (while also looking at Eva for some reason) as he leaves, clutching his shoulder:

“Vengeance shall be taken on you sevenfold.”

SURVIVING STUDENTS:

• Damon
• Eva
• Desmond
• Eloise
• Toshiko
• Wenona
• Ulysses
• Mark
• Wolfgang
• Jett
• Ingrid
• Grace
• Jean
• Cassidy