v3 rewrite

chapter 1:
- team dr stops tsumugi from killing amami & switch up the masterminds, say they were both in the last game & volunteered for MMing this one so cheating (& bad writing on tsu's part perhaps) is making them change it to amami instead & making tsumugi the mole. neither of them rly believe this since tsu firmly believes she's team dr & amami can't imagine agreeing to this, but ami's not given much of a choice since they'll kill him if he refuses & go back to tsumugi, & if he tries anything to sabotage the game from this point they'll kill anyone he tries to tell, including the whole group if they have to, since all they care about is preserving the legacy of the game (tsumugi's like "well at least i know you'll die for sure now, the MM always dies")
- while all of this is happening, monokubs&bear are showing up everywhere saying no one is allowed to leave wherever they are currently b/c there's been an unsuccessful attempt at murder. SOMEONE tried to kill ANOTHER SOMEONE, but it was not a killing blow. it was enough to severely injure the would-be victim, but it wouldn't finish them off before other students would naturally get there & intervene. however, the school is currently not equipped w/ a medical facility, which means if they left it alone they could die anyway, help or no. it would be messy for everyone involved, & they're looking for thrilling fast-paced murder drama, not soap opera drama that drags on & on (ha), so they're trying to decide what to do about it & no one can intervene until they do
- once amami reluctantly agrees to all this, everyone's let go & the exisals start reconstructing the public bathrooms on the 1st floor into a clinic to "treat" ami so the hidden room entrance is still usable. it's now in a tiny private bathroom inside the clinic & requires one of amami's rings to be opened. said ring was taken & given back with some dr iconography on the inside of it to be overt and terrible. he's also given an actual head injury for his trouble - nothing serious, just bad enough to bleed & look worse than it is. bandages probably would have been enough but better safe than sorry hahaha! (this might have been tsumugi's idea)
- students naturally rush in once allowed, amami uses the injury as an excuse to get everyone to leave him alone mostly, but detective & a reluctant pianist want answers like why was he at the library if he's not the MM huh??? ami admits to being shsl survivor which has... mixed success
- new motive: first blood perk v2! ("the more versions of something there is the better!") if you kill the person who tried & failed to kill before, you still get out w/ no trial! easier on the conscious since you're killing a would-be killer eeehhh? (amami is like wtf i did not ok this?? but they did it anyway since he hasn't given any instructions yet & the game has to keep movin! he finds out the hard way that inaction is a bad tactic, esp since tsumugi might (& likely did in this case) move things along if he doesn't)
- unsure if kaede admits her guilt to everyone immediately or if she tries to & saihara stops her & some others find out later either by her admitting privately & listening in or doing investigating & finding out that way or what buuut BASICALLY, both kirumi & korekiyo are among those who find out the truth (the latter probably secretly)
- korekiyo tries to kill kaede since he thinks what she was doing was noble & therefore she'll be a good "friend" (UGH), kirumi finds out his plan & stops him... Permanently
- trial happens since the wrong person was killed for the perk, kirumi doesn't confess right away b/c she wants to do her thing of balancing between coddling the group & making them the best they can be, wants to make sure her classmates are capable of finding out the truth even if its ugly & succeeding in the trial so they can defeat the MM, feels bad man (kaedes like THAT SHOULD BE ME, guilt from attempting murder was already bad enough but this is SO MUCH WORSE)

chapter 2:
- amami takes stock of the situation after confronting tsumugi again who fills him in on more things like everyone having signed up for this game willingly not just them, how there's a certain order to things like when they find out what & how to make the best motives, etc. etc. finds himself in the awful position of trying to both "run" the game & destroy it w/out it being linked back to him. decides he wants to use the flashback lights to reveal everyone's real memories immediately - a challenge to team dr to see if they're telling the truth, plus the offer of it being the best twist dr has probably had in a while. he's hoping it's all lies, but even if its not, he thinks they must be twisting the truth somehow & aims to find out how and why to use it against them. moreover, if what he's been told of the flashback light mechanics are true, they can only add new memories @ this stage, not erase them, so he believes the kind of person everyone is now will do the right thing & fight back, even if their pre-game selves wouldn't
- which leads to the first flashback light in his MM reign, which is... everyone watching part of a v52 trial, confirming amami's talent. he wanted all the memories at once, not just this, but is told that the information has to be revealed slowly enough that it doesn't fry their brains, pluuuus it needs to be paced for the "story" aspect & make fulfilling archs n such. this makes more ppl trust him since they saw him being a good guy in the trial (which is what dr wanted, much to ami's chagrin), but not everyone, since why would he do this again willingly if not to kill more ppl? usual arguments about trusting someone just because you want to vs no that's stupid ensue
- new motive: the killer is guaranteed to not have to participate in a killing game ever again! monobear/kids make big show about them not having been supposed to find out about there being multiple MKs this early, buuut since they know now, might as well make a motive out of it! ("does that mean if we survive without killing anyone we WILL have to do this again?" "i don't know, does it?") paranoia over the implications of multiple MKs ensue, wondering what the purpose is, have they all done this before and they just don't remember? etc. etc.
- speaking of, amami's pissed b/c he didn't see tsumugi in the flashback which means dr was DEF lying abt that, tsumugi confirms that it looked like she was watching from some kind of low quality tv so she must have not been there, exceeept it's a red herring b/c she was there just under a dif appearance/name/talent, tsumugi muses that mb she pretended to die like junko & was watching from MM room or s/m, but she rly was a regular participant, just not wearing her regular glasses/contacts & wearing sunglasses or goggles or s/m that obscured her vision
- angie's like "we can stop ALL the killing games if we just live here peacefully!! praise be", saihara weirdly asks kaede if she remembers how she *felt* during the flashback, she says she just remembers being rly focused, to which saihara is like "oh ok. yeah me too, definitely, for sure" b/c Foreshadowing
- not set on the murder here but atm i'm thinkiiing mb magic show still happens, but since kirumi's gone they ask iruma to help out with lots of cool inventions! iruma "helps", but rly she's planning murder since her big beautiful brain can't be stuck in a revolving door of MKs!! she intends to frame himiko w/ her own show like kirumi did & sets up a trap in the clinic since it's no longer in constant use by this point, planning to use supplies there to clean up the mess, mb stuff the body in the private bathroom until the time is right for them to move it to himiko's lab along with other prep stuff
- aaaand then himiko finds out abt it. she *also* wants to get out since everything in life is already a pain, she can't imagine doing this over and over & angie's god isn't so great at comforting away this new memory, not when proof of it is walking & talking around, but planning a murder is so much work... and then a super easy murder plan falls in her lap! so SHE uses it instead. iruma told whoever she intended to kill to meet her at a certain time at the clinic (which never would come to pass b4 the actual murder but is like, Evidence), so himiko tries to use it before then. she isn't seeking revenge on iruma specifically, really, tho she seems the most likely candidate, just whoever walks into the clinic 1st. which happens to be kaito, who had ironically come to the clinic by chance to see if there was medicine that could help with his whole Dying thing
- so to recap: iruma tries to kill X & frame himiko, himiko finds out & actually *does* kill someone, namely kaito, & she tries to put the framing back on iruma. the framee becomes the framer. womp womp
- this sets up some interesting potential for the rest of the game! iruma going ahead and working on her game-breaking inventions for different reasons (forgiveness and/or busting out of the game unconventionally since she fucked up the normal way) & isolating herself in her lab Home Alone style while kiibo tries to convince ppl that no she's cool rly, & a combination of kaede & hoshi filling in kaito's role/s, like hoshi living to confront harukawa over the assassin thing & hearing her story & being like... oh we should be friends instead Actually? & kaede being there for saihara (Unfortunately). neo world later becomes a personal safe haven for iruma they have to go in to make her leave. also she noticed that clinic bathroom was weird somehow which could come into play later

chapter 3:
- flashback light time! it shows.... the very beginning of the game. like the part that they're made to forget before they get their shsls. this cranks the confusion up by A Lot, since they never got the original ch 2 flashback light abt the shsl hunt. so there's theorizing that thats what the multiple MKs are, hunting down all the shsls & wiping their memory for protection, but also... it's only a bit since they were all mostly preoccupied at the time with terror & confusion over being kidnapped, but. they do remember their thoughts & feelings at the time. aka their pre-game selves. which is already jarring w/ the at least somewhat different personalities, altho that can be chalked up to wiped memories right? the ones who actually figured out what was happening & being excited about it at the time tho... thats harder to explain away
- also amami & tsumugi were friends who were worried abt each other apparently wtf is up w/ that??? kiibo is Maybe self-aware now? or at least knows Something is Up re: his pre-game self. saihara continues to subtly foreshadow things
- motive is: if the killer gets away, their classmates won't be immediately executed! ... they'll be thrown into a new killing game instead. :) it's clarified that ch2 motive in ongoing, too. so hey, at least 1-2 ppl would probably survive the new game! or if they all believe in each other sooo muuuch, they could probably all escape w/out killing anyone next time, riiight? (the goading part of it is monobear, but it is still amami's "motive" - he thinks its kind of a rehash of last chapter's motive anyway just made more explicit, & they should want to break the cycle not continue it, & everyone learned their lesson last trial right? right???)
- student council time! no more MKs for sure!! amami joins this time around, not believing it will work but hoping it buys enough time for a better plan to be made/more memories to be recovered. hint: it doesn't. esp since angie destroys the next flashback light :)
- tenko is the killer this chapter. she goes from fighting w/ angie in ch 2 over himiko (both b4 & after the trial for v different reasons) to actually befriending her. they bond over their shared betrayal, & also tenko remembers being terrified & alone pre-game & is looking for *something*, so her joining student council is genuine this time around. tsumugi also joins like in canon & befriends tenko, which amami is... nervous about, initially, but he's also in the process of coming to terms w/ his pre-game self & maybe not hating tsumugi so much?
- he was right to be nervous
- tsumugi might be more conflicted now than she originally was (aka a little vs not at all), but she remains loyal to danganronpa. she takes advantage of the suspicion & tension already there between the students & tenko's hatred of iruma after ch 2 & manipulates tenko into thinking everyone not on the student council is going to betray the student council. kill them, even. with people like iruma & kaede, would-be killers, & harukawa & hoshi, actual killers, is it any surprise? if whoever was turning them against us was out of the picture, maybe it could be different, but...
- so tenko tries to kill iruma. which justifies iruma's paranoia in the worst way, btw. harukawa stops her, & tenko thinks this means harukawa has already fully turned, that everyone really *is* out to get the student coucil, & grows increasingly hysterical. harukawa tries to talk her down, & tenko's like, if you *really* have any honor left face me in a fair fight, b/c neo-akido & reading emotions etc. etc. harukawa agrees, either underestimating tenko in her true element or mb going easy on her since her pre-game memories showed she doesn't have a much better life outside the game, anyway. a reverse canon hoshi situation, if you will. so tenko wins, harukawa's dead, & before tenko can move on to iruma to do the true ch3 double murder, the body is found. Oops
- the trial involves trying to get to the root of the rumors of the anti-student council sentiment, which even other members are worried about to some extent by this point. when they realize shirogane is at the heart of it tenko's like, ok well! shirogane's the true killer! she used me like a weapon! that means--
- nope. reverse peko parallels abound. tenko is executed. she dies doing what she loved, protecting all women everywhere, kind of literally

chapter 4:
- angie survived, student council dissolved, shes having a Bad Time
- motive is motive videos a la original ch2 for some more memories that can't be so easily destroyed this time around, except the videos are their dr auditions :) :) :) also they're largely mixed up like in ch2 too. amami did not get to watch them prior to their being released and regrets this Immediately
- amami's vid is like "hey no way man u already got the survival perk vid, go find it scrub". except his room isn't even unlocked yet so wtf!! saihara gets his own, u already know what it is. whatever is on tsumugi's is enough to make whoever gets it murder her
- Chaos
- if tsumugi's vid wasn't enough to convince someone she's the MM, her behavior last trial seals the deal. hoshi has said video & wants to kill her. not just for him & everyone else but to honor harukawa's death specifically, too.
- as mentioned earlier, iruma redesigns neo world as her personal safe haven & refuses to come out. she does give kiibo admin privileges as a fail safe, however. this + maybe some physical upgrades too end up enabling him to weaponize himself. unlike tenko or peko, he is used as an actual weapon by hoshi. willingly, mind you. his antenna is removed in ch3 execution which plays a large part in this. hoshi probably just came to him for help, originally, wanting to use neo world to kill tsumugi & knowing kiibo would be his best bet for help. once kiibo is also convinced that tsu's the MM, tho... remember how canon ch6 went? Yeah. add in self-awareness too early & its not a pretty picture. classmates probably try to convince hoshi to say kiibo is technically the killer so he can live but he refuses. he knows what he did & he's owning up to it.

chapter 5:
- theres no fakeout MM here
- but there is a fakeout
- but first: explosions
- iruma blows up her lab. her inventions have done nothing but bring death & destruction to everyone & everything around her, & also her talent isn't even real anyway, so she's giving up on it. with two big middle fingers up to the school in the process
- everyone reconvenes to talk everything out. plenty of arguing & hopeful speeches occur. they ultimately decide that they're done playing this game. they know it's a game, and they're done giving the audience what they want. maybe they wanted this initially, but they're not those ppl anymore. (it's amami's dream come true Basically.) they don't know how they're going to technically end the game yet, but they have time to figure it out. b/c the audience wants an ending one way or another, right? so that's what they'll get. they have time. they're going to cooperate. it's all going to be fine
- haha SIKE
- saihara does a hit. and by hit i mean murder
- optional motive: the killer will get to keep their talent, the implication being that they'll lose it otherwise. this is supposed to play back into the game cycling & the reveal of tsumugi's role in the last game (which everyone finds out upon watching the video that got her killed), that they're not being "awarded" anything, they're just feeding the cycle unless they stop it altogether. except it could give saihara extra motivation to do a hit while he still has detectiving skills, not that he super needs it
- i've included saihara's murder at the end b/c it's appropriately complicated but basically he kills ouma & traps kaede somewhere & makes which one of them is dead the mystery, one he hopes to not even solve himself based on the setup (but he does in the end & is rl pissed abt it)

chapter 6:
- yeah so you know how iruma blew up her lab? as you might guess, she invented a bomb to do that. a real one, no electric crap. turns out she actually built multiples & hid them as a backup plan. guess what happens?
- more explosions thats what happens. endgame is here bitches
- investigating happens, everyone starts remembering everything, oh god
- this is the chapter i'm least sure about tho
- i imagine a scene where everyone has to be convinced to keep fighting since thats The Trope? mb monokuma flashes them a whole bunch w/ a flashback light (like amami was explicitly told not to do earlier b/c it's ~dangerous~), which scrambles them & temporarily brings their pre-game selves to the forefront until they're talked down? or they're just like fuck man we wanted this we don't even deserve to win, also ami's the MM so we shouldn't listen to him either probably? maybe? uhhhh
- also among the recovered memories for amami is indeed being tsumugi's friend, oops. aaand trying to make a plan together to end the game so foolproof that they could pull it off even when their memories were wiped. like writing the characters such that they would stand up to the MM & refuse to start the game, & then make sure the survivor perk finishes the job by exposing the mastermind. what could go wrong? (try Everything.) they argued over who would be the MM initially too, since if everything went according to plan they were the most likely to die, but tsumugi won eventually on the merit of being the only one able to pull it off. how can i hold, all this irony
- other than that idk how it ends honestly
- i know i want angie to live for that good crisis of faith arc, gonta b/c he deserves a good arc & learning that protecting everyone doesn't mean letting them use you, iruma so the character who by all accounts should be dead survives, & kaede for similar reasons, esp since she isn't the perfect protag in this. not that she's perfect in canon obvs, i mean, *gestures to ch1*, but she struggles & deals w/ guilt & trust issues & not being right all the time. also she's not necessarily like, THE protag. amami either. if this is an actual written thing i'd like it to feel more like an ensemble cast w/ multiple POV changes. granted it'd have to be done carefully to not spoil murders or other reveals meant to happen later, but i think it could be possible? i know i wrote all this in a way that focuses on ami p intently but that's just the result of the MM switch being the starting point of all this & his part in it being what i'm most sure of. speaking of, amami i think would almost have to have an ambiguous ending at best? b/c meaning well or no, being the MM & getting away scotch free feels wrong too

misc:
- ch 3 motive could be tweaked possibly? made more solid?
- there's a lot of wiggle room in general here, especially depending on how hard the pre-game selves are leaned on & how they're interpreted. establishing more potential character relationships/dynamics & personal journeys & working back from there could help too. like i'm already fond of harukawa&hoshi bros & amami&shirogane enemies turned ??? turned oh god why & kaede/saihara Miss Steak, but theres room for so much more! i have more ideas for amami's dynamics since like i said i'm the most solid on him, liiike, being reluctant friends w/ angie since he genuinely likes her & what she's trying to do & wants to help her after the council mishap but also being afraid that will just make it worse on her when she finds out the truth so trying to keep his distance? which is kind of his approach to everyone but the way the council shakes out makes it hardest w/ her. existing near kaede is Awkward b/c being around someone you tried to kill is hard, who knew? & there are just, So Many ways things could shake out w/ ouma, as is so often the case. regarding gonta... shipping w/ hoshi is weirdly popular but honestly? i can dig it. i think kaede could be a v good friend for him if she does stay around longer too. might even intervene w/ his being messed w/ by ouma or the student council? i was gonna muse on more possibilities but this is thousands of words long holy shit why did i do this to myself
- just kidding i mused about it more on discord anyway, gonta & kiibo & iruma & ouma interactions have so much potential & i'm excited 4 them, tenko & angie's relationship is short-lived but good, shirogane is Complicated
- i still need to think more on saihara in this? i know how he turns out in the end obvs & that he's able to mostly keep it under wraps until it's too late to stop beyond kaede getting increasingly nervous around him but also trying to acknowledge she doesn't always know best & she's probably judging him too hard that's all it is, surely, but beyond that... does he keep the hat? does he waver w/ it? where does he fall between canon ch1 & post ch1 personality-wise? how much does ouma pick up on? mb he has a worrying relationship w/ shirogane too... i read a fic centered around this once & it was Good
- i haven't even begun to think of executions? & other things i should think of & don't know that i should be i bet? in spite of the length this is mostly all very general, which is for a reason since i've thought about it largely in generalities beyond specific scenes that have played out in my head. that just leaves a lot of room for growth & development is the positive way of looking at this i think

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here's saihara's murder as promised so it doesn't have to keep living in a separate pastebin:

ok so. i thought of saihara's murder mb? bear with me here

he has everything he needs already for this plan at this point in the game with the exception of one thing - a gas mask. it's conceivable he could find something like this in the warehouse, but i think i prefer instead that ouma & kaito's labs open in reverse order. this makes a gas mask missing from ouma's room much better evidence & has more significance, meanwhile kaito's lab - and more importantly the hidden room inside it - opening in ch 6 investigation could contribute to learning they were never meant to find out the real truth like they did in the game

as for everything else... have u seen saihara's lab. he could kill so many ppl w/ all that. team dr knew what they were doin

so here's what i think happens: saihara wants to create a murder mystery that no one, not even HIM as the shsl detective, can solve. he knows that this is a game that other ppl are watching, tho, & while he might not know about the camera bugs (altho mb they would have found this out by now?), he knows everything is being recorded SOMEHOW, so this is a p daunting task. he doesn't have iruma's inventions, either, but what he does have is good ol' fashioned chemicals. mb he just has a poison already there that does what he wants, but i think it makes for better evidence if he has to mix a few together to get the right quantity & effects he needs, since who else but the shsl detective would know how to manipulate the supplies in his lab the right way w/out killing themselves in the process? (he might argue gonta could since "didn't he figure out he's actually super smart or something" to rub salt in the wound, or iruma since she's smart even tho shes an inventor not a chemist, but they're weak arguments at best)

he makes a poison that creates a big thick toxic smoke cloud when it reacts to the air. when inhaled, it eventually dissolves you from the inside out b/c this is danganronpa & everything has to be exaggerated. he also makes an antidote for said poison, just one. you might see where i'm going with this. he rigs 2 of the 3 creepy empty rooms on the 4th floor to be death traps. for both of these rooms, the door is open when the victim approaches. they're dimly lit w/ those candles, so the trip wire just beyond the door is easy to miss, esp if the victim were to be in a hurry for some reason. once inside, the trip wire triggers something heavy to close & lock the door shut behind them, which causes the bottle of poison sitting on the door to fall to the ground & break, creating the poisonous gas that will surely kill them. one of these rooms has the antidote - the other has something that makes the poison work faster. :)

now, this next part works best if there's some additional setup in an earlier chapter. it can still work without it, but. well, i'll explain first. for this trick to work, the floor has to be repaired so the victim can't escape. additionally, it works better if there's extra sound to mask the setup further. it can still work without it if the one who survives goes unconscious for hours & both participants just so happen to scream enough that you can't really tell who survived, but. it's not only more believable if there's extra sound to obscure what's what, but it also sets up an extra thing i will explain later. the floor already being fixed is also much less work for saihara who's already doing A Lot. SO! i propose that earlier, ideally in chapter 3 when this floor is revealed, everyone puts on a haunted house. & by everyone i mean the student council so angie has a reason to use her new lab & they get some use out of this creepy floor. kiibo convinces iruma to invent something that makes loud scary spooky noises & iruma agrees b/c shes hoping it'll make him talk to her again :,) the floor is repaired either before the haunted house so no one gets hurt or after because someone DOES get hurt. the noises are presumably turned off after the original haunted house, but saihara uses the remote to turn them back on for all this & then destroys the remote, whoops.

now, to actually get the victims where he needs them, he has to do a few things. first, i'm thinking he tosses canisters of sleeping gas underneath the doors of everyone besides his two targets at night. (drugging their food would have been easier but lbr that would not work on iruma at this point. drinks miiight work tho? esp if they're celebrating their imminent victory with drinks from shirogane's lab... i kind of like this better b/c it gives subtle signs that ppl aren't feeling well prior to the murder, but only if everyone that needs to would willingly participate.) these ppl are then hidden in like... their closets mb? saihara's not buff but he doesn't need to do an especially good job of hiding them for his plan to work. he just needs them out of sight. he then goes to get kaede & ouma & is like. o shit everyone is going missing??? the mastermind must be doing something, we must be next-- but i think i figured out where the mastermind is hiding! they have to be in one of those abandoned rooms on the 4th floor. that's why the floorboards were originally loose. i know they've been there since b/c they pried some of floorboards back up after we fixed them. there's 3 of us & 3 rooms, so i'll take the center one & you guys can pick who goes left or right when we get there. we gotta hurry tho, we don't have much time!!!

when they get there, saihara says he thinks he heard something behind them. he's like dw i'll distract them! you two go ahead!! he does this so he intentionally does not see who goes into which room. it's also important to note that neither he nor the audience initially know which room has the antidote. he put both the fake & real antidote in like, a case or something that he shook around so there was no way to tell which is which, since they both look the same. saihara will figure out which room had what in the end when he goes in & finds out which body is disintegrated, but not before then. the audience will never see this b/c of the smoke. b/c the smoke isn't just there for the initial murder - once saihara's sure the deed is done, he dons his gas mask & keeps a smoking vial on hand to obscure his movements until he's done w/ everything. he keeps his eyes closed when entering the rooms initially, nudging his feet to see if whoever's in the room is still a person or a skeleton. if they're a skeleton, they're scooped up to be planted elsewhere. if they're a person... well.

what saihara wants ppl to /think/ happened is that he wrapped them up in a thick curtain from tsumugi's lab so he couldn't tell who they were, & then proceeded to walk all over the school with his smoke screen, meaning he could have hidden the person anywhere in the school & there'd be no way of telling where. what he /actually/ does is pry open the floorboard he loosened, dump their body in there, & board it back up. they come back to consciousness at some point in the investigation, but they're too weak to do much but make a little noise that is drowned out by the spooky sounds. this is the extra thing set up by ch 3 i mentioned earlier. :) the last step is preparing one familiar box. or two identical boxes that match one familiar box, rather. it's the jin kirigiri present box. he divides the skeleton amongst the two boxes & puts them both in ouma & kaede's respective labs. gotta give a throwback to his favorite dr character!!!

then he puts his stuff away & falls asleep in his closet. as you do. everyone wakes up, wonders why theyre in their closets? what even happened last night? can't find kaede or ouma, what's going on- oh fuck. oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. a body has been discovered & this can't be happening. they figure out quickly enough that there's only enough bones to form one full skeleton. does that mean one of them killed the other & is hiding somewhere? are they both dead & the other corpse is hidden somewhere else? wtf is going on??

the key to finding out who was actually killed is thus-- the audience doesn't know which room had the antidote, but the one thing they do know is who walked into which room. saihara doesn't know who walked into which room, but he knows which room had the antidote by end of it. therefore, if the audience were to somehow tell saihara who walked into which room, *he* would know who's dead, thus ruining the case for him. the audience can't tell him, of course. amami could, once he watches the tapes, but that doesn't help during the trial. what *does* help is the fact that ouma snuck amami (or optionally someone else) a hurried note under his door before he left that just says something vague like, "I'm going right. Don't tell anyone you don't trust." b/c he's a paranoid motherfucker til the end.

so saihara's caught & his case is ruined for himself personally, but he still doesn't tell them who he killed b/c fuck u guys. he's also like "well i'm still the only one who knows where the other person is & i'm not telling you either so they'll probably die too, oh well!" everyone's like shit can we just execute this guy already so we can try & save the other person's life??? which they do. they realize that the curtain excuse is pretty flimsy-- even with it being heavy & wieldy, ouma & kaede are still very different heights & weights. saihara's weak anyway, thats why we were only in our closets probably. & wouldn't the alive person make sound? couldn't they hear them? unless...

they smash the floor & find kaede in terrible shape but alive. thank god they have a clinic. (the clinic was probably useful if someone got hurt during the haunted house, too. like if ouma hit his head & pretended to die or something, how wild would that be. it probably would have helped kaito too if he lived long enough. sure is weird there wasn't one originally right? almost like they wanted someone to die of something preventable? huh.) also everything is terrible forever