Magical Girl Witch Trial.
A twisted, bad-taste game where thirteen girls trapped in a prison are forced to elect a murderer—who may have already turned into a Witch—and vote to execute them.
Although Nikaido Hiro had already experienced this twisted game once before, she still felt nauseous every time she stood at her assigned seat in the tribunal.
"This is against the rules, Warden!"
The Owl Warden had gathered the girls in the tribunal, but Nikaido Hiro did not look satisfied with the current situation:
"We haven't even found Sawatari Koko's corpse yet. How can we rashly conclude that Nanaka killed her?!"
"Shouldn't we vote to determine the suspect first and temporarily detain them in the punishment room, just like before?!"
"Uncle... I think so too."
On the other side of the judgment seats, Saeki Miria expressed her view:
"Could Koko just be seriously injured and have left via the Garbage Chute? I think we should hurry up and find Koko first, instead of being here..."
"Hiro and I searched the Bathroom on the first floor earlier, and we didn't find any trace of Koko."
Hasumi Rhea raised her hand to add. Before Shito Arisa and the others brought up the news from the Underground Level that Sawatari Koko's body was missing, she had not left the Bathroom:
"Based on the time Nanaka claimed to have pushed Sawatari Koko's body into the incinerator, if Koko wanted to climb up along the Garbage Chute, she couldn't have escaped my and Hiro's sight no matter what."
"Moreover, there is a most important question: Assuming Koko really isn't dead, why would she hide and not regroup with us directly?"
Hasumi Rhea raised the core issue of the event, causing the girls in the tribunal to fall silent one after another.
No matter how one looked at it, assuming Kurobe Nanaka hadn't lied, the disappearance of Sawatari Koko's corpse was too bizarre.
There was also the Warden's behavior—impatiently gathering them together to announce the start of the Magical Girl Witch Trial. Every aspect revealed suspicion.
"Holmes once said, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth!"
"There is only one truth! What Nanaka killed was not Koko, but Koko's 'Doppelganger'!"
"Huh?"
"Isn't that right? Have you all forgotten that Hiro just encountered Emma's Doppelganger this morning, eh!"
"The book says that a Doppelganger leaves no corpse after death. This way, the case makes sense!"
everyone turned their gaze in unison towards Tachibana Sherri, as well as the dusty book she held high with great excitement.
"Why haven't you put that book back in the library yet, Sherri!!"
Tono Hanna, whose judgment seat was next to Tachibana Sherri's, widened her eyes.
"And why are you so obsessed with this kind of novel setting? Where is your professional ethics as a detective (Knox's Decalogue)??"
"Hehe, isn't it because I see everyone is clueless?"
"After all, what the book says really fits the situation we are encountering now. For example, Koko was actually killed by her evil Doppelganger long ago, and then her Doppelganger happened to be taken out by Nanaka..."
Tachibana Sherri stated her deduction with shining eyes, leaving everyone present speechless.
"Although I also want to defend Nanaka, that possibility is still too ridiculous."
Nikaido Hiro held her forehead, closing her eyes and frowning. Combining all the clues everyone had gathered from investigating the Incinerator Room and the Bathroom, she still couldn't reach any answer.
The bizarreness of the case, the abnormality of the Warden, and the "Emma" she encountered this morning...
She tried to jump her train of thought out of the crime scene itself, but her mind only became more chaotic the more she thought.
She even suspected that if she continued thinking, she might actually agree with the ridiculous answer Tachibana Sherri had obtained.
But if she shot the arrow first and then drew the target—reverse-engineering from the result—besides Nanaka, there really was one person with the greatest suspicion—
"Sakuraba Emma."
"Hiro...?"
"It's you, right? The mastermind behind this case!"
"...Ah, me?" Faced with Nikaido Hiro's sudden accusation, Sakuraba Emma couldn't help but raise her hand to point at herself, her mouth slightly agape.
She seemed stunned; at this moment, her entire person became a stiff statue.
"This is a cold case comparable to a locked-room murder. All alibis have been invalidated."
"Since no one has a clue, we might as well reverse-engineer from the result!"
"We only need to conclude who benefits most from Sawatari Koko's death!"
"Then it's only you, Sakuraba Emma! You, who appeared in the Bathroom this morning!"
"Koko's death benefits me? I..."
"I... Hiro, you... Why? It's not like that..."
The pink-and-white haired girl seemed to have been talked into a daze. She stammered for a long time, unable to utter a decent sentence.
Sakuraba Emma suddenly felt a headache.
She raised her hand. Reason told her that she should accuse Hiro of being suspicious as well, but in the end, she hesitated and lowered it again.
Pain, so much pain...
This appearance of hers made her look even more suspicious instead.
"The corpse hasn't been found, and an autopsy cannot be performed. If we are forced to proceed with the Magical Girl Witch Trial, this is the only way."
Nikaido Hiro secretly curled the corners of her mouth. She was truly a genius!
How could she forget? Besides personally killing Sakuraba Emma, she could also openly create suspicion around her using "perjury" in the Magical Girl Witch Trial to eliminate her.
As long as the result is correct, what does it matter if there are slight errors in the process?
As long as this Witch dies, everyone can obtain happiness!
"Autopsy..."
"I remember now! Koko's corpse, her corpse!"
It was also at this moment that Kurobe Nanaka suddenly exclaimed,
"On Koko's forehead, where I shot her, no 'butterflies' appeared, but blood!"
"I definitely did not kill Koko!"
Although Kurobe Nanaka's words were just her one-sided testimony, everyone's expressions seemed inclined to believe her. Having been willing to plead guilty before, she had no reason to lie now.
In this prison, the wounds on the corpses of murdered girls would not bleed; instead, crimson fluttering butterflies would appear.
This was information they all knew, and intelligence the Warden had provided them at the very beginning.
'Very good, Nanaka has also lowered her own suspicion.'
'Sakuraba Emma, you evil Witch, you have nowhere left to run!'
"Time is about up. Since everyone has decided on the suspect they want to accuse, let us begin the voting."
The Owl in the center of the tribunal twisted its head 180 degrees to look back at the tribunal entrance, then turned its head back around and said:
"Kurobe Nanaka and—Sakuraba Emma. Everyone, please vote for the true culprit from these two suspects."
"The voting time limit is one minute. If there is no result after one minute, both will be executed."
The incomparably cold pronouncement carried an unconcealed urgency, which also fit Nikaido Hiro's intentions perfectly.
"Thinking about it, isn't this very strange? Since Koko might still be alive, why don't we go look for Koko instead of..."
"Tsk, isn't this too hasty? This damn Owl!"
The crowd, discussing animatedly, did not approve of this trial process, which could be called arbitrary.
Were it not for the Debris Guard standing by with a giant scythe, perhaps someone would have already started to resist.
"Very good. Voting results announced. The vote count is 5:5."
Before long, the voting machine displayed a shocking result. Sakuraba Emma and Kurobe Nanaka had unexpectedly received the same number of votes.
Great. Equal votes.
Although they hadn't encountered this situation before, presumably the Warden would postpone the trial time to let everyone continue searching for the truth...
"Then..."
"Let's just execute both of them."
But before everyone could even sigh in relief for a moment, the resolution suddenly made by the Warden exceeded the girls' expectations—
"Eh?"
"You bastard, what kind of joke is this?!"
Shito Arisa leaped up from the judgment seat. Flames had already begun to burn in her hands as her gaze under the hood glared furiously at the Owl.
"How can you do this!!!"
"That's too excessive!!"
Hasumi Rhea and the others also had faces full of disbelief. The girls stood up from their judgment seats one after another, wanting to overturn the voting result.
"Please do not obstruct the execution, otherwise I don't mind adding a few more people."
"Shito Arisa, you left your judgment seat just now, right? Then let's count that as you disrupting the trial process."
"Although your exclusive torture device has been taken for maintenance, it is acceptable for you to share a torture device with Kurobe Nanaka. After all, bullets are plentiful."
However, the Warden's words, as well as the Debris Guards that instantly arrived before the judgment stand to stand by, made everyone's hands and feet go cold.
"Let go of me! You bastard, die!!!"
A Debris Guard arrived before the judgment seat without a word. In front of everyone, it dragged Shito Arisa to the center of the tribunal.
At the same time, with the shifting of mechanisms in the tribunal, a Gatling gun white as polished marble and a guillotine similar to those used during the French Revolution slowly rose from the underground.
Sakuraba Emma and Kurobe Nanaka were also shoved onto the execution grounds by the Debris in the same manner.
They wanted to struggle but were powerless,
They wanted to cry for help but there was no one.
Nikaido Hiro's pupils trembled. She covered her mouth and nose, her mind a complete blank.
Things having reached this point, how could she not perceive the goal of the Owl Warden standing in the center of the tribunal?
—It didn't want to find any so-called murderer at all; all it wanted was slaughter and death.
All the girls froze in their original places on the judgment seats.
They were silent as cicadas in winter; fear and panic surfaced in the depths of their eyes.
"What are you doing? I'm not dead! Stop it quickly!"
Even Sawatari Koko, who had run hurriedly into the tribunal from outside exclaiming to everyone, went unnoticed by anyone. All gazes were gathered in the center of the tribunal.
"Alright, time is up—"
The Owl swept a glance at Sawatari Koko, who had run into the tribunal panting, its voice cold as frost.
"—Execution start."
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