The Truth Revealed

While Keitaro was confident that the killer had used some kind of hallucination Ability, he unfortunately didn’t know the Abilities of anybody present other than Natalia and Sean. Natalia’s Winter couldn’t be used for this and Sean’s Ability to shoot light beams couldn’t either. Keitaro had also heard rumors that Brianne could create rivers, but he left that as an unknown for now. Abilities were closely guarded secrets of the Knights and Maidens, but he needed some way to reveal which suspect had the necessary Ability, and he was laying a trap to find out…

Keitaro had called everyone for a meeting, claiming he’s cracked the case once and for all. “Right here, right now, I will show you all irrefutable proof of who the killer truly is!”

“Impossible. We searched everywhere and couldn’t find anything. Anything that didn’t implicate you, that is,” Sean sneered

With a tut, Keitaro replied, “You barely scratched the surface. See, in their room they had this.” He held up a teddy bear proudly.

Excluding Toko, the entire room, even Jack and Ella, looked at him in confused, disappointed silence.

“Um…” Yuri pointed. “That’s a teddy bear…”

“This isn’t just a normal teddy bear, it’s a nanny cam. This thing had been recording the room all day and night.” Keitaro smirked. “And that includes the murder.”

The entire room stood in shock.

Keitaro set up a laptop on a table and plugged in the teddy bear. “Here’s all the footage. It’s split up by time, so the murder should be right here…” He clicked on a file.

The loading was agonizing and felt like an eternity, but as the video started to play, the entire room gasped.

It was Keitaro standing with Mehmet and Fatma in their room just moments before the murder.

“So it really WAS you!” Yuri yelled out.

Sean shook his head. “As I figured…”

Everyone turned on Keitaro in an instant.

Even Jack had lost faith. “Keitaro, was it really you?”

It was just as it was before. They all saw Keitaro as lower than garbage, except now their disgust included anger.

However, it didn’t seem to bother Keitaro in the least. He had been seemingly exposed as a murderer, yet there was a smirk on his face.

“What the hell are you smiling about!?” Yuri would’ve punched him if it wasn’t currently impossible.

Keitaro chuckled. “Oh, nothing. It’s just that the footage we just saw is actually fake.”

Sean rolled his eyes. “What nonsense are you spouting now?”

“See, the killer has an Ability that lets them create illusions, and that’s what we’re seeing right now.”

“As if we’re going to believe that?” Yuri slammed his fist down on the table. “Just fess up already!”

“And I know exactly who this person is.” Keitaro leaned on the table. “Because there’s something I noticed a while back. Whenever somebody uses their Ability, a faint glow appears on their wrist.”

Sean laughed. “Your wrist glows when you use an Ability? What idiot would believe that lie?”

“It may be a lie, but we found our idiot.” Keitaro pointed to Gabrielle, the Violet Knight, who was panically examining his wrist.

The entire room looked at him, and as they saw what he was doing, everything became crystal clear.

The room was deathly silent as Gabrielle realized his fatal mistake.

With slow steps, Keitaro walked towards Gabrielle. “Only the guilty party would need to check their wrist.”

A thousand things went through Gabrielle’s head. Denying, fleeing, fighting, but he knew in his heart that it was over. With a sigh, he resigned. Falling to the floor, defeated, he confessed. “That’s right… It was me…”

“So? Did you use your Ability to make them see some kind of terrifying hallucination making them commit suicide?”

“That’s right… Terror… That’s my Ability… I went to their room last night and made them see a horrifying monstrous bug. I had it crawl all over them before resting right on top of their Cores… And to try and kill it they…”

“I see… You then forged that note and messed with Hana to incriminate me, right?”

“Exactly…”

With a smirk, Keitaro said, “Then it looks like the case is closed.”

Now that the ire of the coalition was on Gabrielle, all Keitaro had to do now was sit back and watch the fireworks.

“Hold on! Wait!” It was Camilla, the Violet Maiden. She ran in front of Gabrielle, shielding him. “Please! Just wait!”

“Wait for what!? This guy killed Mehmet! He was only a boy!” Yuri spat out those last words.

“Nothing you can say will stop justice here,” Sean coldly laid out.

“I know, but… Please understand…! Gabrielle’s always been the type to do things on his own. I never imagined he’d do something like this, but it’s because he did it for Rome!” She started to cry. “The war with Paris was awful! Our city was destroyed, and all we wanted was some help to rebuild! But not even that could be given! It’s easy for some of you guys! London, Tokyo, Berlin, even Moscow, they were all barely touched! It wasn’t fair for us to bear the greatest burden of this terrible war by ourselves!”

“Camilla…” Gabrielle looked up at her in awe.

“So please, just have some mercy, okay?”

The room was taken aback by her plea, but ultimately, they couldn’t forgive such a transgression.

Jack crossed his arms and looked away.

“This can’t be forgiven…” Klaus muttered.

Yuri cracked his knuckles, his eyes burning into Gabrielle.

Sean stepped forward and spoke for them all, “While we will have to let Gabrielle go, we cannot overlook his betrayal. From this point forward, he and you will be removed from all negotiations, and Rome’s membership in the Coalition will be revoked as soon as possible.”

Camilla’s tears were still flowing. She wanted to keep protesting, but she knew it was hopeless. Gabrielle had always been doing things like that. Stepping out of line for the sake of others. This time, however, his luck had run out, and they had to accept the consequences of that.

***

“Talk about a disaster…” Keitaro rubbed the back of his head as he watched London grow smaller and smaller as the Yamato rose high into the sky. “Still, I suppose it paid off…”

Even though Keitaro had to endure false accusations and prove his innocence, Tokyo actually made it out like bandits. With two of their rivals removed from the discussions, that meant Tokyo and Moscow could just split the French treasury and stockpile with each getting a sizable amount.

London and Berlin still butt heads, but they eventually settled on an equal split of Paris.

“I-I’m glad it’s all over…” Toko fiddled with her hands. “I was pretty worried for a while…”

With a laugh, Keitaro reassured her. “Come on! Do you know how many detective games I’ve played? I’m basically Herlock Sholmes II!”

“Oh, I would not go that far…”

“Admit it. Just think about that trap I laid. It was a masterful plan.” He held up the teddy bear which he’d taken along as a souvenir. “This teddy bear isn’t even actually a nanny cam. I just stuck a hard drive inside it.”

“That was great. It was like a scene out of a manga.”

“I know, I know… But all the clues were there, I just had to bring the truth to the spotlight…” He adjusted his hat, and with a swish of his cape, he said the iconic line, “It was elementary, my dear Toko!”