Goro is seated in one of the couches, strapped in place and completely immobile with cuffs around his wrists and straps at his waist and neck. Instead of his usual attire, he is in a prison jumpsuit, the difference stark from his usual put-together appearance. His hands are pushed forward on the arms of the chair, displayed palm up without his favored gloves. The position shows off his bruised and scabbed over fingers from the murder, two of the fingers on his right hand visibly broken. While the rest of the restraints are generic and nondescript, his wrists are in department-issue handcuffs, marking him for a criminal.

Then, the music starts, and it doesn’t take you long from there to realize what had been off about the entire set-up. It’s surrounded by glass, like an aquarium tank. And somewhere, hidden by the curtains, there must be pipes, because blood is pouring from the ceiling, falling right across Goro’s outstretched hands and spilling across the floor.

The blood doesn’t drain, filling the tank. As it reaches Goro’s knees, Monokuma floats out from backstage on a tube, holding an announcer’s microphone. “Upupupu, you know what they say about blood on your hands--it never washes away!” He cackles and floats off the other side of the stage, the fluid level rising rapidly. Goro has long since given up on his pleasant and unruffled facade, struggling against his bonds roughly enough that blood from his wrists mixes with the blood surrounding him, but you can’t watch them run into each other for long before it’s too high, climbing up his chest, his neck, reaching his chin.

He’s going to die choking on the blood he spilled.

The way people drown in the movies is dramatic yet short-lived, screaming and then silence, their last breaths floating up as bubbles after they’ve submerged for the last time. This isn’t like that. There is no wild thrashing to be done with Goro strapped in as he is, only the tilt of his head up as far as he can until his face is covered too, the choking sputters of him trying not to swallow blood or inhale it barely audible against the cheery execution music in the background. And the blood flow seems to slow as it reaches his face, making you watch the final moments of struggle before the tank is completely filled.