Danganronpa Kirigiri Volume 1 Chapter 5 part6

Danganronpa Kirigiri Volume 1
Chapter 5: Murder at the Sirius Observatory 3

"I-It wasn't me!"

"I know. You should first consider the mystery of the dismembered corpses. Why were they severed into fourteen distinct parts? And then, why were those parts switched?"

"How could I possibly understand something like that? Whatever the answer is, doesn't it boil down to some freak getting off on something messed up? Or are you saying that there's some logical reason behind dismembering them and reorganizing the parts?"

"Yes, there is."

"No way! It just doesn't make sense!"

"No, you'll soon understand if you consider it with a level head."

"Levelheaded... Levelheaded..."

I'm pretty sure Kirigiri said that bodies are dismembered to make them easier to carry. Maybe that applies in this case, too?

...Carry them? But—from where to where?

Suddenly, I was struck by an idea.

"There's one simple answer that can resolve all these mysteries, isn't there?" Kirigiri asked.

If the culprit was one of the dead people—if he wasn't playing dead, and didn't commit suicide—he prepared a dead body double!

How would he get a dead body double? He would have had to have carried it in from the outside. How? By cutting the body into pieces, of course.

"Are you saying that someone brought a sixth person into the building as their body double, already in pieces?"

"I can't think of any other option."

"But... that couldn't be it... I mean, I saw all of the corpses' faces, right? The three dead people were the three detectives I met today, without a doubt. The people who died were Amino-san, Enbi-san, and Inuzuksan..."

"I'm saying that one of those people was a fake. The culprit killed one of the detectives in advance and dismembered him. Then, he appeared before us, looking like the spitting image of that detective..."

"A fake...?! There's just no way for that to be possible, is there? I mean, didn't everyone show us photo ID? It shouldn't be possible to impersonate someone else that perfectly unless it's a detective who's a master of disguise. Or are you saying that the culprit was actually a detective, too? But if he has to be skilled at disguise on top of that, that logic relies on things being very convenient."

"No, that's incorrect. This impersonation was much more simple than that. All he had to do was travel to the Detective Library and select a detective who looked just like himself."

"Oh... Right! He could manage it if it was a detective who already looked like him from the start!"

There are over 64,000 detectives registered in the Detective Library. It might not be difficult to find at least one of them who looks a whole lot like you.

The culprit killed that detective in advance. Then, he stole his Detective Library registration card, and acted like he was that person in front of us... Then, on top of that, he dismembered the body and brought it here in a way we wouldn't notice. An uninvited sixth guest was with us the whole time.

"But... even if it makes sense that the culprit dismembered the body to carry it... why would he arrange the body parts the way he did? I can barely imagine any kind of reason there might be for that."

"No, the culprit had a pressing reason for doing so."

"A pressing reason...?"

"First of all—dismembering the bodies makes them more compact. You've already surmised as much, haven't you? More or less?"

"...Right."

"Secondly, there is the issue of livor mortis. When a person dies, their blood no longer circulates throughout their body, and thus, it slowly settles down on one side of the body in accordance with gravity. As the blood collects, the surface of the skin begins to look speckled or even halftone. Livor mortis becomes more visually prominent the more time passes."

"Yeah, even I know that."

But I never thought I would get a detailed explanation of it from a middle schooler. That Number 9 of hers wasn't just for show. This kind of talk made me want to throw up, but she continued with a calm expression.

"The culprit killed one detective in advance to be his body double. Naturally, this happened before we were even gathered here. Therefore, that one corpse was significantly older than the others. If the culprit were to use that corpse as his body double without thinking, the livor mortis might betray that gap in the estimated times of death. Instead, the culprit drained the blood from the body. That task might have been easier to accomplish while the corpse was dismembered."

Stay tuned for the next update next Sunday (PST)!
You are encouraged to comment and form theories on the mystery,

Chapter end