Tear Jerker / Apex Academy

• Case One. Not only was Kazusuke's death a total accident (Mary Jane broke his foot while roughhousing with him, which caused some bone fat to leak out and give him a pulmonary embolism, causing him to fall and hit his head against the table), Mary Jane was completely unaware of what she had done until Kakumi pointed it out to her. Even then, she's unable to process the idea that she killed him and keeps insisting she's not the culprit even after the Climax Return. The group's insistence that she shouldn't be considered culpable is ignored by Monochap, who clarifies that the case had a 'killer', not a 'murderer'. Not knowing the penalty for an incorrect majority vote, some of the others, including the usually stoic Kakumi, vote for the wrong person on purpose, and they barely scrape out a correct vote at 7-2-2-1-1-1-1.

• Really, everything about Chapter 4's trial:
  • With the class quickly running out of leads, Kakumi is finally forced to confront the truth behind the case: Otoya, someone she spent several chapters building a friendship with, is Aki's killer. Having no choice but to expose his murder to the class, and being unable to defend him as he distressfully fights for his innocence, Kakumi has to hold back tears over having to condemn someone close to her.

  • The victim fared no better, either. After watching her closest friends continue to be killers, and all of her attempts to save them ending in failure, Aki is thrown into a state of depression over it. This all culminates in the fourth motive being the resuscitation of one of the dead, where she decides to sacrifice her own life to revive one of them, intentionally planning to die by Otoya's hands to avoid Monochap using suicide as a loophole.

  • The pre-voting. As a last-ditch effort to save Otoya's life, Kakumi proposes they force a majority vote on someone else. However, he realizes she could easily die due to it, as they don’t know the punishment for getting the killer wrong. Refusing to have his friend get hurt, he desperately votes for himself to protect her. With nothing else left to do, Kakumi is thrown into a breakdown over her Sadistic Choice: either vote for Otoya and be partially responsible for his death, or vote for someone else, potentially risking her own life and going against his wishes.