Danganronpa Kirigiri Volume 3 Chapter 4 Part6

3:00 AM.

The lifeless Takeda Haunted Mansion finally faded into the darkness, transforming into a gathering place for spirits. With no warm bodies to halt its advance, the brisk air creeped into the hallways and swallowed up the building.

At that moment, one person was approaching the mansion. The night didn't reject them, for their heart had long embraced the darkness.

Veiled by the shadows, the figure steered clear of the mansion doors, crossed the fence towards the cliff, and walked through the bamboo thicket. They were likely hoping to avoid leaving footprints, or perhaps, to avoid detection on the chance that officers were patrolling the area.

Before long, the figure reached the backyard. Their destination was in sight. They carefully inched their way to the water wheel, pulled out a crowbar, and raised it above their head—

"Stop right there."

The moment the girl's voice broke the silence, floodlights hidden in the bamboo lit up the scene.

The veil of darkness shrouding the figure was cast away. Standing exposed in the light was none other than Korisu Kakitsubata.

Blinded, she stared blankly towards the floodlights. Shielding her eyes with her hand, she slowly made out the figure of the girl standing in the light with her arms on her hips.

It was Kyoko Kirigiri.

"Wh-What's the meaning of this?"

"I asked the police to a.s.sist me." Kyoko gestured towards the officers lurking in the bamboo. "I knew you would return to destroy the lingering evidence of your crime."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Kakitsubata replied, playing dumb.

"Then enlighten me. What are you doing back here at this hour?"

"I lost one of my earrings. It cost me a pretty penny, so I came back to look for it. Is there a problem with that?"

Her swift answer made me wonder if she had prepared excuses in advance or if she thought of it on the spot. Either way, her airheaded demeanor from before had vanished; she sounded much more alert and clever.

"What's that in your hand?"

"You know how an earring can fall somewhere unreachable? I brought this with me just in case."

"It looks to me like a tool to destroy something," Kyoko continued, with her hands still on her hips. "There's no point in hiding it. I'm well aware of everything you did."

"I don't know what you mean."

"You killed Suntetsu Shirasu."

"Is that what you think?" Kakitsubata shook her head in disbelief. "So that's why the police are standing there looking all grumpy. I'm shocked they're convinced of a child's silly little theory. The killer was that Mizuiyama woman. Wasn't she the only one who fit through that door?"

"Yes, at least according to the true culprit's plan. I imagine the killer invited detectives they found in the Detective Library archives, intentionally including a person small enough to escape from the locked room who could be framed for the crime. But choosing Mizuiyama was a fatal mistake. On paper, she could fit through that door, but in reality, it was impossible."

"Impossible?" I subconsciously blurted out. I was standing behind the floodlights with the officers in the bushes.

"Her clothing. She wore a kimono that severely restricted her movements, making it impossible for her to squeeze through a s.p.a.ce that narrow. Her obi would get caught." Kyoko turned back to Kakitsubata. "The information you read in her file made her a perfect candidate for your scapegoat, but I doubt you imagined she would arrive in a kimono."

"Th-That's a.s.suming the rubber bands were stretched to their limit earlier!" she countered. "Her kimono is irrelevant; she could have used the jack to widen the gap even more."

"By that logic, anyone could have escaped from that room, as long as the gap was made large enough."

"The gap couldn't be forced open for anyone else; the rubber bands would snap!"

"We can't confirm that without experimenting. This reasoning won't lead to a definite answer; perhaps anybody could have fit, or perhaps n.o.body could."

"The same applies to me; the gap could've been too small for me. Can you really call me guilty because of that?"

"There's other incriminating evidence pointing to you."

"There's no way any of that can be real."

"Then let me ask you, what were you doing here in the backyard yesterday after three?"

"B-Backyard? Why do you think I was here? Don't spout nonsense."

"It isn't nonsense. I know for a fact you wore the armor's sandals into the backyard."

The revelation rendered Kakitsubata speechless.

"So the sandals were dirty because she wore them outside?" I asked.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Kakitsubata finally retorted. "What's this about sandals?"

"Creating the locked room involved a substantial amount of setting up," Kyoko explained. "Completing the trick required you to enter the backyard, but you didn't have your shoes with you. Because you had a reason to finish your preparations as quickly as possible, you had no choice but to wear the sandals outside."

"What's this reason?"

"The snow. As long as the snow continued to fall, any footprints left outside would eventually be covered up. You needed to finish setting everything up before the snow stopped, or else the illusion of the locked room would be incomplete."

The murder occurred around 11 PM, and we confirmed there were no footprints in the snow at that time. Any setup in the backyard would have to be completed several hours before the murder, in order to allow enough time for the light snowfall yesterday to cover up footprints and other markings.

"After luring Shirasu into the dojo and putting him to sleep, you realized you didn't have any shoes. You could have made a detour to the entryway to grab your shoes before returning to the dojo, or you could have headed directly to the entryway and left through there. Unfortunately for you, neither of those options was possible, since Yadorigi was in the entryway most of the afternoon."

Yadorigi did mention he was investigating the paintings hanging in the entryway.

Kyoko continued. "If you had nothing to hide, you could simply walk past him to grab your shoes, but that wasn't possible. Naturally, he'd wonder where you were headed with your shoes, thereby ruining your murder plot. You couldn't wait for him to leave either, since you feared that the snow could stop any second."

Kakitsubata had been ready to parry Kyoko's statements, but she was quiet now.

"You had no shoes, but you needed to go outside. What, then, could you do?"

"Walk barefoot," I answered.

"Of course, that would be the alternative. But I imagine it would be painful walking on the snow on such a cold day."

"Couldn't she just grin and bear it? It's not like she'd need to be outside for hours, so if she hurried a little…"

"Of course, that would be possible, but there was an overwhelming psychological reason preventing her from doing so."

"A psychological reason?"

"What if the snow didn't end up covering her footprints? She wouldn't be able to explain why her footprints were in the backyard. To avoid that predicament, she knew she needed to wear some kind of footwear outside. Any objections?"

n.o.body said a word.

Kyoko turned to Kakitsubata. "And that brings me back to my original point—you noticed the armor's sandals and wore them yourself."

"Wait, why are you accusing me of that?" Kakitsubata cut in with careful timing. "Nothing in your logic proves it was me who used the sandals."

"I checked everyone's shoe sizes. The armor's sandals were 10.5 inches long, but waraji sandals aren't normally a.s.sociated with a size. People typically wear waraji smaller than their feet, with their toes sticking out from the front."

"Huh, I didn't know that!" I exclaimed. "Why do you know so much about waraji?"

"I've always been interested in traditional j.a.panese culture," she said while staring off into the distance. "Anyways, Yaki and Yadorigi were the only ones whose feet were larger than the sandals."

"Th-Then one of those two wore them!" Kakitsubata protested.

"No, that's unlikely. If either of them was the killer, they would have ruled out wearing them to avoid leaving toeprints in the snow—as I mentioned earlier, the culprit was psychologically hampered by the fear of leaving behind evidence. That means whoever wore the sandals had smaller feet."

"So it was that Mizuiyama woman!"

"Her shoes were 8.5 inches. That brings up the opposite problem—her feet were too small for the sandals."

I thought out loud. "Then that leaves…"

Kakitsubata and Shirasu. Since Shirasu was the victim, he could be excluded.

All of our eyes trained on Kakitsubata, who had turned pale.

After wearing the sandals outside and finishing the necessary preparations for the trick, she returned to the dojo and replaced the sandals. Unfortunately for her, the stains left on the shoes became a crucial piece of evidence.

"But what then…?" I asked. "Wasn't the door to the hallway already sealed? She couldn't leave through the backyard without shoes…"

"While setting up the trick, she pa.s.sed through the bamboo and stopped by the parking lot. The small red car probably belongs to her. Driving in stilettos is quite difficult, so I bet she had an extra pair of shoes for driving. She could use them to return to the main building."

…Kyoko really didn't overlook anything. She was amazing.

"Wh-Why does any of that waraji stuff matter? Isn't it cruel for you to accuse me of murder based on that nonsense? Besides, none of it proves anything—all this 'psychological' talk, the shoes being too small, can you say any of that with certainty? Beyond any reasonable doubt?"

"I cannot. That's why I asked the police to a.s.sist me in setting a trap for you. If n.o.body showed up, I would have admitted defeat."

"I told you, I came back to look for my earring…"

"That's a lie. You came to destroy the remaining evidence of your trick." Kyoko pointed a finger straight at Kakitsubata. "Back then, while outside the locked room, you killed Shirasu with a trick that stretched across the entire backyard. The evidence of that is in that icicle on the water wheel."

Kakitsubata gritted her teeth.

"What was the trick?" I asked. "She was with us in the hallway. Did she control the warriors with a remote control or something?"

"Nice try!" Kakitsubata shouted with renewed vigor. "The armor was empty when we entered. There wasn't any device like that."

"There's no need for a remote control," Kyoko said. "All you needed was some string, the water wheel, and a katana."

The water wheel? What purpose could a frozen water wheel serve?

Next: Chapter 4, Part 7 (Coming Soon!)
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