Danganronpa Kirigiri Volume 1
Chapter 1: Murder at the Sirius Observatory 1, part 4

We had been puzzled by the fake request we'd received. It was dark outside, and we weren't able to go home during the snowstorm. We had gathered around the table to discuss our plans from there on out.

Just then, with no warning, the first person collapsed. I'm pretty sure it was Amino. He suddenly crumpled up, falling from his feet onto his side. Then, white smoke started spewing out of nowhere. Someone screamed, "Fire!" But there weren't any other signs of a fire, and it didn't feel hot. I had been nervously trying to figure out what to do, but before I knew it, I also started to lose consciousness. I had no idea what happened after that.

"That's the truth behind the smoke." Kirigiri pointed underneath the table. A small aluminum can-type thing had rolled under there.

"What is this?" I crawled under the table, pulling it out from under there. "It looks like a can of juice... but there's no hole to drink from."

"It's a home-made smoke generator, isn't it? Someone rolled it under the table. We can feel fortunate that it doesn't seem to have been tear gas or sleeping gas. But that hideous white smoke blanketed our fields of vision entirely."

I had lost consciousness pretty quickly, so I didn't really know what had happened after that. "What exactly happened?"

"Well, I don't really know. But everyone started collapsing, one after the other, and so I immediately pretended to collapse too," Kirigiri said.

"Pretended? What do you mean, pretended? Are you saying you're the only one that nothing happened to?"

"Yes. Because the smoke itself was harmless. I believe that everyone collapsed not because of the white smoke, but due to some other cause. It is a fact that the first person collapsed before the smoke came out. I wonder if perhaps, at some point, you were made to ingest a soporific. Do you have any recollection of that?"

"Hmmmm... Soporific?"

I didn't know about the others, but at the very least, I could speak for myself in saying that I hadn't ingested anything since arriving at the Sirius Observatory. There shouldn't have been any point at which I could have taken any drugs. But thinking back, right before I lost consciousness, I did feel sort of drunk. I thought I just wasn't feeling well, but...

"Still, what's up with you being the only person who escaped danger?"

"Perhaps it's thanks to my constant training," she said bluntly. "Sensing danger is my specialty. But, when I do sense it, it's often nothing more than a simple 'bad feeling' or 'foreboding', and so frequently it's only in looking back on events that I am able to string together a logical explanation of events... Grandfather calls it 'hearing the reaper's footsteps'."

I hear that great mathematicians are able to come up with propositions even when they skip some calculations along the way. I've heard of a lot of episodes where they struggle to explain themselves afterwards. I wondered if she was that kind of genius.

No, right now, we don't really know why we fell unconscious, so it's possible she's just being silly. Or maybe she's the culprit, and so obviously she'd be able to avert danger...

Wait, what "training"...?

"Everyone started collapsing one after the other, so it was clear that some dreadful criminal plot was being put in motion," Kirigiri continued. "I pretended to collapse to see what the culprit planned on doing. But when I did, I heard the reaper's footsteps again."

"What happened?"

"They were the culprit's footsteps. It seems our culprit is the very cautious type. They came closer to me, and forced some strange drug on me. It wasn't chloroform or ether. It likely wasn't an anesthetic... Perhaps it was some sort of synthetic narcotic. They covered my mouth with a handkerchief, and though I held my breath for a bit so as not to inhale it, at some point I still lost consciousness..."

So in the end, she just fainted too? Mm, wait a minute?

Shears, decapitated corpses, drugs that cause fainting... Those things together had a familiar ring to them. No... I recognized that combination.

There's... no way that could be it.

For now, I just need to hear out all that Kirigiri has to say. I might just be misunderstanding things.

"Did the culprit know that you were only pretending to faint?"

"No, I don't think they did. They were likely going around and putting the handkerchief up to everyone. To ensure that they actually fainted."

"And then what?"

"Despite my hazy consciousness, I still attempted to resist." In the middle of her disinterested speech, this is the only place where she seemed to deliberately insert a pause. Almost as if she were proudly announcing her results.

"...So?"

"I grabbed the culprit's hand."

"Grabbed?" I asked, disappointed. "Is that all?"

"Yes. Unfortunately, I was unable to scratch or bite the culprit, but I was at least able to touch their hand. With the white smoke clouding my vision, that sensation has become my only clue as to the identity of the culprit," Kirigiri said, looking down at her own fingertips.

"What did it feel like?"

"It was a man's hand."

"Really? Are you sure about that?"

"It was unremarkable, but unmistakably male. There's nowhere easier to sense the difference between men and women than the hands and fingertips."

"Hmmmm... Is that really true in practice, though? Have you ever held a man's hand before?"

She looked taken aback by my question, freezing in place. There was a long pause—and then, she just resumed her explanation, acting as if nothing had happened. "I have never murdered anyone, but I have read up on the sensations of murdering someone. This is a similar situation. You understand, don't you? Then, continuing on..."

"Wait, that's some pretty strange reasoning. Oh, maybe, you haven't even held hands with any boy at all, ever...?" I asked, teasing, effectively shutting her up again. She was pretty mad this time. She turned her head to look away, apparently shunning the conversation.

Maybe I teased her a little too much. Even though she spoke and acted like she was indifferent, this reaction was surprisingly timid, so all of a sudden I didn't feel like teasing her anymore.

"Sorry, sorry, that was a weird place for me to butt in," I apologized. "I'm sure you've at least held your dad's hand before. That's enough for your logic, so everything's fine. Now, go on."

"I forgot about that."

"Huh?"

"I'm saying I forgot what my father's hand feels like." Kirigiri narrowed her eyes, brushing back her bangs with her right hand. That was the most emotional gesture I'd ever seen from her up until that point.

"I-I see. Gotcha," I said, brushing it off. How complicated. It seemed like she had her own tangled circumstances, but getting too stuck on them would mean the real conversation would never progress. "So basically, what you're trying to say is... since the person who caused you to faint was a man, then logically it can be concluded that I, Yui Samidare, am not the culprit, correct?"

Kirigiri nodded, still turned away.

Among the detectives that were invited to the Sirius Observatory, Kyouko Kirigiri and myself were the only women. If her assertion was correct, then I could be excluded from the list of suspects.

"But that's what I've been saying since the beginning," I said, sighing. "The fact that I'm not the culprit is a fact that I already knew. I didn't even need proof for that."

"No, I still wouldn't call it definitive proof."

"What? Are you saying you can't believe it unless you touch my hand to make sure or something?" I asked, but Kirigiri just faced down, searching for the words to say, before looking up with only her eyes, nodding just slightly.

"...Your hand," she said hesitantly, asking for my right hand. She seemed pretty serious.

Is this a trap?

If she was the culprit, then maybe all the testimony she'd just given was nothing but an excuse to get closer to me. Maybe she was hiding some kind of weapon, and was trying to lure me in range.

Kyouko Kirigiri—I still didn't know much about her. I hadn't really had the time to get to know her, and in the time that we did spend together, I mostly learned that she was mysterious, and that she apparently had a complicated home life. Her claiming that I was innocent wasn't going to be enough to get me to trust her.

"Okay, let's shake hands and make up." I still didn't move closer to her, though. "But the real handshake will be after everything is settled, and we're both proven innocent."

"I wonder what that's supposed to mean?"

"First, sit on the chair," I ordered. She had been sitting next to the chair this whole time, but in accordance with my demand, she sat down in the armchair. "Now, show me your right hand." She presented her hand just like I told her to.

I carefully drew closer to her, taking her small hand in mine. It seemed as if it were made of glass, as if putting a little strength into it would shatter it, but I steadfastly refused to let go. Her left hand was restrained by the handcuffs. With me holding her right hand like this, she wouldn't be able to attack me.

We shook hands, as if evaluating each other, exchanging a glance.

"So? Do you see the truth now? But we can talk about that later. I'm a detective too, so I'm going to try searching for my own truth."

"What will you do?"

"First, I need to conduct a thorough search of the building," I said, still holding hands with her. "I still suspect you. You're a detective too, so you should understand where I'm coming from, right? But if I want to keep suspecting you... There's one major condition I still need to fulfill before I can indict you as the culprit. That is, I have to investigate the possibility of a crime committed from the outside. Was someone other than us five guests able to come or go from this place?"

"You still hadn't confirmed that either way?"

"...Y-Yeah, I mean, I was still half-asleep," I scrambled to defend myself after she butted in. "A crime committed by a sixth, uninvited guest... If there's any proof of that, I can let you go."

"You'll need to investigate quickly, before the snow erases the evidence. Particularly outside the windows and the entrance. There may still be traces of someone exiting or entering."

"I'll look into it."

Stay tuned for the next update next Sunday (PST)!