Danganronpa Kirigiri Volume 3 Chapter 4 Part5

"Yui, let's go take a look outside."

"…Yeah, good idea."

The quickest way outside would be through the double doors, but since our shoes were in the entryway, we had to circle back through the mansion. Leaving the crime scene, we pa.s.sed through the hallway to the main building.

Numerous pairs of leather shoes were lined up in the entryway, all belonging to the police officers. Finding my own shoes wasn't a walk in the park.

Before grabbing her own pair, Kyoko peeked inside the shoes of the five guests.

"What are you doing?"

"Checking their shoe sizes."

Yadorigi - 11.5 in
Yaki - 11 in
Shirasu - 10.5 in
Kakitsubata - 9.5 in
Mizuiyama - 8.5 in

"Are shoe sizes that important? You've been oddly interested in them."

"They may be one of the few pieces of evidence that will help us corner the killer."

She sounded steadfast in her belief, but I couldn't possibly imagine how shoes were related to the case.

We grabbed our shoes and headed towards a separate door to the courtyard. The moment we opened it, a piercing chill a.s.sailed us while flakes of snow fluttered in. Although the snowfall was fairly light, the frigid weather had caused it to slowly acc.u.mulate.

I pulled out a flashlight from my backpack and turned it on. A pale circle of light shined onto the snow.

"It's freezing… Kyoko, come closer." I latched onto her right arm and we braved the snow together.

We walked down the narrow path between the main building and the dojo. The police had left behind countless footprints over the course of the investigation.

I peeked in the barred windows of the dojo. It would be impossible to make out anything if the lights were off, so n.o.body could have seen anything when the victim was being killed. On the other hand, the culprit would be forced to commit the murder while deprived of sight…

We continued down the path to the backyard. Like in the courtyard, multiple sets of footprints dotted the snow. Before the police arrived, however, we confirmed that the snow was undisturbed.

The temperature steadily dropped. The howl of the wind was accompanied by the sound of flowing water coming from somewhere beyond the dense bamboo thicket surrounding the backyard.

We hopped over the waist-high fence and followed the sound of the water through the bamboo until we reached the edge of a perilous cliff. My legs froze up as I stared down the steep cliff face.

"One wrong step and I could've fallen in…"

It was about a 15 to 20 foot drop into the ravine. I shined my flashlight downwards, revealing a swiftly flowing river at the bottom. Anyone who fell in would surely meet their doom.

We reversed course through the bamboo and went back over the fence.

"Yui, look." Kyoko pointed to one of the fence's horizontal planks. I shined the light on it.

There was a fresh scratch on the top of the plank, probably left behind by a wire of some sort. No other part of the fence had snow shaved off.

"Maybe this is related to the murder," I commented.

Kyoko turned towards the mansion. Straight across the backyard was the dojo entrance. Minutes earlier, we had tried pushing open those double doors. They were completely shut now. Although the doors opened outwards, the small elevated covered porch outside would prevent them from disturbing the snow. Still, anyone hoping to reach the main building from there would leave a trail of footprints.

We moved onto the porch and turned around to face the backyard. To our right was the main building and the path leading to the courtyard.

I shined the flashlight to our left, illuminating a stream and a water mill.

"Wow, it's a water wheel!" The old-fashioned machine astonished me. The darkness had prevented me from noticing it before.

The stream stretched through the bamboo thicket down to the ravine, but in the middle of winter, the water was frozen solid. The water wheel stood perfectly still. Judging from the thick icicles hanging from it, it was probably out of commission for the entire winter.

"Let's look inside the mill," Kyoko suggested, narrowing her eyes to protect them from the wind.

"Huh…? Is there something in there?"

"We're going to find out."

We huddled together and headed for the mill. The entrance was across a small bridge, on the other side of the stream. The stream was no more than three feet wide, so it wasn't impossible to jump across.

Flanked by bamboo, the thatched-roof water mill would look suspicious even in daytime. Yet, under the veil of night, it appeared more likely to house profound secrets.

"It's not like an a.s.sa.s.sin will ambush us… right?"

"Don't say scary things," Kyoko said with a blank expression.

I opened the rickety wooden door and swung the light around like a weapon. A millstone normally powered by the water wheel rested in the center of the room. Shovels, brooms, and other garden tools were stowed away in a corner. Nothing stood out as particularly dangerous.

However, one object caught my eye. A jack resembling a giant spring, a tool that people would use to lift up a car when changing tires.

Kyoko pulled it out from the corner. It was light enough for her to carry by herself. Something like that would ordinarily be stored in the trunk of a car, but it didn't seem particularly out of place here.

"Figure something out?"

"Yes, this seems usable."

She walked out of the mill with jack in hand and went to investigate the water wheel.

"It's pretty suspicious, isn't it?" I trudged up to Kyoko while exhaling warm air onto my numb fingers. "Snow, a water wheel, and a katana are three perfect tools to concoct a murder trick with."

"…Right." She sounded uninterested and changed the topic. "Look at these giant icicles."

"Want one? I'll break off the biggest one for you."

"No need."

"Come on, I'll grab the second biggest for myself and we can have a fencing match."

"Don't." She shook her head. "These icicles are important pieces of evidence."

"Huh…? These icicles?"

"Yes." Kyoko had on her usual look of pride. I bet she had wanted to hide it, but it was plainly visible on her face.

"Does that mean you've solved the locked room trick?"

"Yes. The answer is clear," she replied with a composed expression.

Even though we had witnessed the exact same things, I had absolutely nothing figured out. I was supposed to be the detective for this case…

"Look carefully at this icicle. Notice the white line running across the middle?"

"Oh, I see it!"

"This is immovable evidence of the trick."

"…R-Really?"

The line could have resulted from reattaching the separated faces of an icicle that was snapped off horizontally. But I had no idea what that could mean. The water wheel wasn't moving, and the stream was frozen over.

Seeking refuge from the cold, we crossed the yard and returned to the mansion. Although the interior wasn't warm by any means, it was substantially more comfortable than being outside. We walked down the hallway with our shoes in hand.

"I've figured out the trick behind the locked room, but it'll take quite some time to identify the culprit."

"How long?"

"To hear and corroborate everyone's complete accounts, three days, at the very least…"

"We don't have that kind of time!"

"I know. I wanted to solve this case entirely with logic, but considering the time limit, taking shortcuts is inevitable," she said, narrowing her determined eyes.

We gathered Yadorigi, Yaki, Kakitsubata, Mizuiyama, and several officers in the dojo.

The clock had struck two in the morning. Everyone looked exhausted aside from Kyoko, who managed to look as cool and composed as usual.

"Now… What did Mr. Ryuuzouji say?" one of the officers asked politely, still viewing us as Ryuuzouji's messengers.

Kyoko started to speak. "This case appears fairly complex, but the murder trick was actually quite simple."

"Is that Mr. Ryuuzouji's a.s.sessment, or your own?"

Kyoko ignored the interruption and continued. "All doors leading here were sealed from the inside with rubber bands. This severely restricted them from opening—it took the full strength of a grown man to create a small gap."

"Yes, and we used that gap to sever the rubber bands and enter the room," Yadorigi added.

"That begs the question—why did the killer use rubber bands, instead of a st.u.r.dy chain or wire? When you dive into that, the mystery of the locked room begins to unravel."

"Hmm… Why don't you show us how it was done?" an officer requested.

Giving Kyoko free rein over the scene, the police officers stepped away from the door. In her hand were the previously severed rubber bands, now restored to their original condition.

"The illusion of the locked room is reinforced by making everyone believe the doors were sealed firmly shut. But in reality, by employing the properties of rubber, the killer created a very flimsy locked room."

"A flimsy locked room—I see."

The officers nodded in understanding, swiftly scribbling down notes into their handbooks.

The four suspects remained silent, watching attentively as Kyoko continued her demonstration.

"First, sometime after three in the afternoon, the killer called Suntetsu Shirasu into this dojo. I don't know how they invited him here, but once the two of them were alone, the killer put the victim to sleep. We can only hypothesize what might have happened. The victim may have been offered some food or drink laced with drugs, or forced to inhale an anesthetic or laughing gas. Regardless, the killer needed to render the victim unconscious."

"Would that really work?" Yaki crossed his arms. "Why jump through so many hoops? Why not off the guy then and there?"

"That would draw unwanted suspicion. The killer devised the locked room trick to deflect suspicion away from themselves."

"The h.e.l.l was this trick they used?"

"Here's how it happened." Kyoko linked her hands behind her back and faced the double doors in the back of the room. "First, the killer sealed off the doors to the backyard with rubber bands. They could have simply locked the door, but they used rubber bands to not make the other sealed door look out of place—in other words, to make the locked room feel consistent."

"So the door to the hallway is the key to the trick, right?" I asked.

She nodded. "Next, the killer moved the two suits of armor to the center of the room. They were no more than red herrings, meant to redirect the police into investigating the death as a suicide. In fact, the police had fallen for that trap."

"Considering the facts, we had no reason to believe otherwise," one of the officers said with a look of shame.

"Everything went according to the killer's plan. As long as the locked room remained a locked room, none of the suspects could be thought guilty. Additionally, no outsider could possibly exist. The theory of suicide naturally arose, and it was plausible enough."

"There have been cases where suicides were disguised as murders for life insurance fraud, though it's rare for a victim to set up the scene themselves. But none of that applies to this case, right?"

"Correct. Besides, a.s.suming the victim wished to disguise his death as a homicide, there would be no reason to turn this into a locked room. Doing so would make murder appear less likely. Indeed, this case is not one of those cases."

"Then was this really a locked room murder?" I asked. "I can't see how anyone could've done it…"

"Nope. It's possible for one person among us."

The police officers instantly turned towards the four suspects. Yadorigi, Yaki, Kakitsubata, and Mizuiyama glanced at each other with panicked faces.

"There's nothing difficult about it. The killer simply took advantage of the flimsy locked room. First, between ten and eleven, they stabbed the unconscious victim, making sure some blood splattered onto the armor as evidence supporting the theory of suicide. Next, they placed this jack in the doorway before wrapping rubber bands around the doork.n.o.b and a hook on the wall."

She inserted the jack we found in the mill into the gap of the slightly ajar door. The gap was about the width of a fist.

"They wound the rubber bands as tightly as possible and then used the jack to pry open the door."

She operated the jack, and the gap slowly widened. The rubber bands were stretched thin, but they didn't snap. Once the gap had gotten quite big, she stopped.

"This is the limit."

"But that's only big enough for a child to fit through…"

Kyoko could probably squeeze through. It didn't seem possible for me.

Out of the four suspects, only one person was small enough.

"Ms. Mizuiyama, please try squeezing through the gap," one of the officers urged, grabbing her elbow.

She refused, frantically shaking her head and yelling in a shrill voice, "N-No, it wasn't me!"

"Come on, it's just an experiment. See if you fit."

"This is nonsense," she wailed, drawing closer to Kyoko with a look of frenzy. "Are you trying to frame me? Even if I'm the only one who could use the jack to leave the room, I was with everyone during the murder! If you're accusing me, how do you explain the noise we heard?"

"That noise could easily be faked." Kyoko reb.u.t.ted. She gave me a small nod.

As I had been instructed, I took out my cell phone and dialed a number. Not a moment later, a phone lying on the floor by the armor started vibrating.

"For example, if you had two phones, you could leave one here and trigger its ringtone by calling it. By setting the ringtone as that noise ahead of time, you could make it sound like the victim was being killed at that moment. While we were distracted by the corpse, you could retrieve the phone."

"N-No… It wasn't me!"

"Save it for the station." Two officers grabbed Mizuiyama's arms and led her out of the room.

As if still in disbelief, Yadorigi, Yaki, and Kakitsubata stared dumbfoundedly as Mizuiyama disappeared through the door.

"I can't believe it was her…" Yaki looked fl.u.s.tered. "Didn't seem like that kinda person at all. Man, women are scary."

And thus, the locked room murder at the Takeda Haunted Mansion came to an end.

Immediately afterwards, the police demanded that everyone leave the mansion. Two policemen remained at the front gate to stand guard, but the other officers left with us.

The police offered a lift to anyone without a way of getting back. Kyoko and I rode in one police car, while Yaki rode in another. Although the police rea.s.sured him they weren't bringing him to the station to be questioned, Yaki was so shaken that he wouldn't stop talking.

"Hey, Kyoko, is Mizuiyama really the killer?" I asked as we sat in the back of the police car. "I feel like there's a lot that hasn't been explained…"

"The police should be finishing up their questioning and releasing her right about now."

"Huh?"

"I asked the police to help me put on an act. She's not the culprit. I believe the true killer intentionally prepared the jack as a trap to mislead the detective into thinking it was used."

No doubt, that was the theory I had jumped to. Actually, I had been ready to wrap up the case before even stumbling upon that trap, and I was summoned as the detective. Moving forward, would I really be okay?

"It isn't usually my style, but I set a trap of my own. Without the time to gather evidence to properly reason things through, I had no other choice."

Moments later, our police car made a U-turn and headed back to the mansion.

Next: Chapter 4, Part 6 (Coming Soon!)
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