Part 150: Trial 6, Part 5

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: Junko is still alive. It's the only possibility!
: ...
: Are you sure about that?
: ...Huh?
: I admit, since Mukuro is undoubtedly dead, Junko does seem to be the only other explanation.



: But we saw her get impaled. She died right before our very eyes...



: If Junko were still alive, the death we saw would had to have been some kind of charade.



: But you yourself confirmed she was dead, did you not?

Now that you mention it...



I gently placed my hand on Junko's lifeless body... I touched her wrist to check for a pulse, like they do in movies and stuff, but...

: ...She...really is dead.

There wasn't anything else to say. She was gone...



I did check, absolutely. And I can say for sure...

: She was dead. There's no question...Junko was dead.
: So...the idea that she's still alive...
: It must be...wrong.
: Th-Then you're withdrawing your p-previous statement...!?



: Puhu... Puhuhu! I know you gave it your best shot, but too bad! I guess your conclusion was a dud!
: Ahahaha! Too bad, too bad!
: This case hasn't been decided just yet...
: Oh...?





: You haven't given up already, have you Makoto?

...Huh?

: N-No, of course not! There's no way I'd give up that easy!
: That's all well and good, but how do you intend to solve the problem standing in your way? Junko absolutely died. Mukuro absolutely died.



: Then both of them are dead, right!? There can't be any kind of survivor story!
: I think we need to look at this from the opposite direction.
: Huh? The opposite direction...?
: Let's assume Junko is still alive. If so, how could she have survived?

How could Junko have survived...?



I checked her. She was dead, I'm sure of it.



But still...if she *were* alive somehow... Could it be that...Junko's not the one that died? It wasn't Junko, but someone else entirely? Maybe she used some sort of trick...







: New to this Hangman's Gambit is the green letter. They take 4 hits to break. Additionally, the game has been gradually ramping up the speed of the minigame for a while now.



: The letters move more erratically and you probably have two or three seconds from the time the letter appears before it disappears. You're really encouraged to use your Focus Gauge here to give yourself more time to hit the fast moving letters.



> REPLACED





: That's it! What if she switched places with someone else!?
: S-Switched places...?
: That's right. Before the spears could kill her, she got someone to take her place.
: Specifically, Mukuro Ikusaba!
: Then that would make it Mukuro's corpse that showed up later.
: Which is why the body's height and weight and everything matched Mukuro's profile, right?
: I dunno anything about this switching places thing, but...



: ...that had to be Junko who got stabbed to death, right?



: Yeah, you're s-saying they switched? When could they even h-have done that?



: Right when she was a-about to die? Like she used some kind of ninja r-replacement technique?



: Good point. There's just no way they could have switched like that.
: So maybe the whole idea is wrong...

There has to be some way... I need to figure out how to explain how they could have switched...!



> They switched at the beginning





: The two of them...may have switched places from the very beginning.
: What...? From the beginning?



: Yes, from the moment we first met. If that's when they switched...



: ...then they wouldn't have had to switch at the moment of death, right?



: After all, the one we saw at that point would have already been Mukuro.



: H-Hold on...! So you're saying the "Junko" we first met...



: ...was actually Mukuro all along!?



: Th-Then...we'd already met her!?
: I had, like, a normal conversation with her!
: When we first met, none of us knew who anyone else was.



: So Mukuro could have simply told us her name was Junko...and we never would have known the difference.



: That would easily allow the two of them to switch places from the very beginning.
: Wait, but Mukuro had a tattoo on the back of her hand, right!?



: Junko never had any tattoo like that, did she?



: She could have hidden it with foundation or something like that. If she did, it likely melted away in the explosion, exposing the tattoo after the body was extinguished. Plus, there were the fake nails found on the hands of Mukuro's body.



: They were the same fake red nails she was wearing when we all met for the first time.



: B-But...if she really did use foundation...
: Correct. Even if there was no tattoo on her hand, I couldn't say for certain it wasn't Mukuro.
: So I'm glad nobody noticed that glaring hole when we were trying to figure out who attacked Makoto...
: But too bad for you, Monokuma. You can't deny it anymore.
: ...



: Wait, so...! This whole thing was a set-up from the very beginning!?
: If that's true, it was quite an elaborate plan, to be sure. Making it look like Mukuro was Junko...
: ...
: The reason such an elaborate plan was possible is because the two of them were working together.
: So Mukuro, the Ultimate Despair, teamed up with someone like her...



: In other words, it would be fair to say that Junko herself was also the Ultimate Despair!
: ...
: What's wrong? Lost the will to fight back?
: I think he's just afraid...





: Afraid? What's that mean, afraid?
: Fear is only possible where hope is possible. I only have despair, so fear is an alien concept to me.
: Then why haven't you been saying anything?
: Because it's a bunch of nonsense. Junko's my secret identity? Puhuhu! As if!



: Then why did you try and protect Junko's real identity?
: ...
: I tried to protect her identity?
: When did I do that?

So he still refuses to admit it. But... He can try and deceive us all he wants, it doesn't matter. Because I've already figured it out... He tried to hide Junko's identity. And not just once, but twice... The first time was during our latest investigation...



> Present "Interview DVD"





: While I was in the A/V room, watching the DVD of our interviews with the headmaster...





It wasn't just the monitor. The DVD player itself had apparently turned off. Which of course meant that the DVD player wasn't playing anymore.

: Wh-What the heck just happened...?



: Oopsie! Looks like it broke! Out of service!
: What? It just so happened to break just now...?
: Now, then, when, doesn't matter! Failure can strike anywhere, anytime!
: That's what failure IS, right!? *leaves*




: You made sure I couldn't finish watching the video. And the reason you did that...
: ...is because you didn't want me to see the real Junko, did you?
: Oh, yeah! If everyone was in that video, of course Junko would've had to show up!
: And if Makoto saw the real Junko...it would've been totally obvious that the Junko we met was an imposter!
: Th-That whole power outage thing was just a fluke!



No, it wasn't a fluke. The mastermind definitely orchestrated that power outage...! And that's not the only time they tried to hide Junko's identity. The mastermind tried to cover up one other piece of evidence. I've gotta reveal that!