I value them, but I won't cry every time one's wiped out.

[trustbound]

A fair amount of Sunday comes and goes with little interruption and little fanfare; some of you are having a harder time than others, some of you are looking at the new floor with more interest than the rest, but overall the day is perhaps as normal as it can get in this place. However, Jericho had mentioned changes were going to take place today – and while Jericho has proven himself to be a lot of things, he doesn't seem too interested in lying to all of you. As such, his voice can be heard over the public-address system on Sunday evening, at around six o'clock; he doesn't seem agitated like he was during the end of the trial, but he doesn't seem up to his usual levels of enthusiasm, either – he's back to that sort of weird tone that he was using when Yosuke was punished all those weeks ago, odd and unaffected. "Hey. Like I said a little while ago, we're going to be seeing some changes around here. Meet in the foyer as soon as possible; I'm not going to offer you anything, or threaten to do something to you if you don't go, but it's one of those things where you're definitely going to want to know what's going on. We'll be waiting for you, like always." Once again, you might want to go.

Comments

[trustbound]

[As people gather in the foyer, they'll be greeted with a few things that usually don't happen in here; first of all, Alena is out in the open, though she doesn't have a weapon drawn, nor does she have any of the other Participants with her. She's simply sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, her hands situated awkwardly in her lap, where she's fidgeting with her fingers. Her head is bowed but her braided hair pulled back and away from her face; she seems tense, in a way that she usually doesn't. Not afraid, per se, but definitely nervous; she doesn't seem about to cry, but her body is very, very tight.

Secondly, there's someone standing behind her – someone that no one here recognizes.

She's dressed differently than Alena is; she isn't wearing the usual Graceside Academy uniform, but rather a black high-necked sweater and black slacks, with a locket on a long silver chain around her neck. She's short and small-statured, but her stance is confident; her straight black hair falls somewhere above her shoulders, cut into choppy layers that frame her face. Her eyes are grey, like Alena's are, and while they don't look explicitly similar, there's at least a vague, passing resemblance between them.

Alena keeps her head down, not looking at anyone who happens to be there; she just keeps playing with her fingers in her lap as the woman behind her begins to speak. Her voice is blunt and cold, though she settles one of her hands on Alena's shoulders as she addresses the room; the gesture isn't intended to hold her in place, that much is obvious, but it makes Alena flinch anyway.]

So, let's start by verifying that none of us are happy that I'm here. I'm not happy, you're not happy, Jericho's not happy, and Alena definitely isn't happy. But sometimes life sucks, and sometimes people fuck up, and we've all got to take responsibility for our actions here. Because that's the rule around here, and god knows we all live and die by the rules.

[She keeps her gaze high as she speaks; she's reaching into her pocket with her free hand, though, as she continues.]

I understand that out of all of you absolute fuckups that died last week, one of them didn't deserve it according to the rules. After reviewing the facts of the matter with Jericho, we've concluded that Crystalline's death was an accident.

Unfortunately, it was an accident that was entirely caused by one of ours not following protocol and causing a miscommunication clusterfuck that ended with somebody dead.

[What she ends up pulling out of her pocket looks like a butterfly knife; she flicks it open easily, weighing it lightly in her hand once she's done so.]

Like I said, everyone here takes responsibility for our actions. Everybody, and that includes us. If one of you dies and it's directly our fault like that – and don't start with the ethics committee bullshit, I'm not here to listen to you guys preach, and I'm not here to listen to you guys whine – if someone dies and we're the direct cause of death, then we deserve to be punished like everybody else. It's what's just, and what's fair, and no one's going to like it but that's how it's going to be.

[Her hand shifts abruptly to the braid Alena's got her hair pulled into; she's quick to twist it hard around her hand, wrapping the length of it around her fingers and forming a fist in it, jerking Alena's head back hard enough to get a small but sharp cry out of her. The other woman is quick at what she does, however; she sinks the blade of the butterfly knife deep into Alena's neck and drags across hard, slitting her throat easily and letting the blood spill down in one bright burst.

Alena's eyes widen, her hands leaving her lap where they're curled around each other to press against her throat; she tries to force herself to draw breath, getting nothing but harsh sounds and odd gasping noises before she seems to shudder, her eyes sliding closed involuntarily after a while. The other woman just holds her still by her hair, her expression cold and impassive as Alena dies, though she does her the courtesy of sliding her back a bit in the chair so she doesn't just fall on the floor once she's released.

After a moment, the other woman lets go; the sounds stop, and so does all movement from Alena. The conclusion is obvious, but clear.

Alena Larimore is dead.

The woman looks up once it's done; she continues speaking as though none of that just happened.]

My name is Hilda Larimore. Since it seems my little sister wasn't cut out for doing this sort of work after all, I'll be helping Jericho oversee this event from here on. I'm not here to be your friend, and I'm not here to be your mom – if you wanted one of those fucking things, you probably shouldn't have killed Nurturing off. I'm just here to do my job. If you need anything, you know where to find me. If you have any pressing questions that can't wait, or if you want to scream and call me a bitch or whatever, get it out of your system now before I've got better things to do.

[innocentloveholic]

[ Aligula came, of course, and her smile drops as she looks at the situation and... as soon as Hilda starts talking, she knows

exactly

what this is about.

She shrieks. ]

It wasn't her fault, you freakin' dummy! It was Tenacious's! If he hadn't been such a jerk and scared the crud out of Alena, then she wouldn't have done anything! If Coordy-J had told her it was Crystalline outside her door, she wouldn't have freaked out so frickin' much!

[ You— You—

she can't attack Hilda. She's one of the Coordinators now. ]

[matchbreaker]

[ elda's reaction is... steely? Steely might be a good word for it. Alena was a curiosity to her, a weirdly blank slate that she didn't know how to crack. But she had seen a few more hints of ... something over the last little bit. But no, no, that's all entirely beside the point.

While the note that the rules apply to them is interesting, what's got her worked up is a pretty simple thing at the end there. ]

You'd kill your sister over your vaunted rules?

[destage]

[No. No, no, no, no--

Sayaka's definitely down there when Jericho calls, and there's a distinct sense of horror dawning on her face as...well, all of this goes down, and the circumstances become clear. That what happened with Weiss, it wasn't a rule break, and someone was...

Alena was going to be executed. Alena dies in front of those who've gathered, and Sayaka's eyes widen with a sense of horror she hadn't even anticipated coming over her when the woman died. She cut her hair for her this morning, she cut her hair for her and everything--it's currently a nice little bob that's probably gonna make her feel sick if she looks in the mirror again, but...

...Sayaka doesn't collapse, or do anything to Hilda, but she's gonna be looking at Alena's face and just...kind of tear right the fuck up. Oh god.]

Alena-san...Alena-san, no...

[Fuck.]

[hesperos]

[ .....

Wow, okay. That actually doesn't make anything better. ]

So, what, you're so committed to your precious rules that even family doesn't mean worth a damn to you?

[perpend]

You're all insane!

[trustbound]

Alena was still the one who called Rule Five into effect. Besides, if she couldn't keep her head long enough to assess the situation like she's supposed to - if she was actually scared of you little shitshows - then she needed to not be here in the first place.

[bloodbiter]

[As soon as they start speaking about responsibility, she anticipates where this is going to go. She doesn’t move to stop it, but even if she didn’t know Alena well, a look of clear distress does cross her face. And after that explanation, well... Her blood seems to run cold, and her fists clench.]

She... She was your sister?

[firstaid]

[Estelle just doesn't have words. Nothing is coherent right now and any questions she has can't be formed correctly.

They're... following their own rules. They are messed up rules, but they're also bound by them.

That is abundantly clear. So she just stands there with her head bowed-- in mourning and in honest to goodness fear.]

[bloodisthicker]

[oh. he... was kind of right about super fired.

...

in the mafia sense. okay.]

When's Jericho take his share of responsibility, then?

[his brows furrow slightly harder.]

Oh, wait, silly me. The only one who dies as a result of a miscommunication is the one who causes knives to sprout out of a girl's torso, not the all-seeing waste of oxygen who could've resolved it.

[blackmass]

[...Well, that happened.]

Killing even your own sister in the name of the rules as they've been laid out. What an admirable sense of commitment.

[good thing we had the sakura talk already, huh rin]

[sleepytimegal]

[ ...Yeah, fuck this. Alex just- ]

That was your fucking sister?! Your little sister, you piece of shit!

[trustbound]

[Hilda honestly looks sort of disdainful, in that way that implies she's not sure why this is a question.]

Like I said. Someone's dead because of her. Once we fuck up in that capacity, this is what's going to be done.

[matchbreaker]

[ There's a small handful of conflicting emotions in her, most of them summed up by some combination of Aligula and Sayaka's freak outs (did both of them Alena that much more? Interesting) and Kirei's... Kirei-ness.

She ends up bearing her fangs. ]

So, does that mean you're opening up for meetings too, or are you above that use?

[trustbound]

...Oh, right, I was told about you.

[It's about as cold as everything else she's been saying.]

I get that some of you little trainwrecks do that creepy...staring-at-the-bodies thing. I'm not going to tell you not to or make you stop doing it, do whatever you want.

[trustbound]

I never said she didn't mean anything. But this kind of work? It involves taking the consequences of your actions. Presumably she knew that, and if not she just learned the hard way.

[jesus.]

[trustbound]

It's not the first time we've been called that. Alena, Jericho, me, all of us.

Whatever you've got to throw at us, we've probably heard it before.

[trustbound]

She was, yes.

[perpend]

[THAT WASN'T A DENIAL]

[innocentloveholic]

[ That's probably not unfair to say, especially given her profile, but also— ]

That's totally bullcrap and you know it! That's just looking for some stupid, dumb-dumb excuse to get rid of her!

[trustbound]

[godspeed, estelle.]

[destage]

[--Oh, Sayaka flinches back at that, just. Kind of snapping her eyes to look at Hilda. That cold, horrid woman who just...killed Alena, so hideously and coldly. She's not sure what the hell to say to all of this, but...]

...I'm...I'm going to make sure that Alena-san is remembered. I-It's the least...the least that I can do, for her.

[She's...at least going to try to hold her ground, then, straightening up but still kind of reflexively holding the sleeve that has those stones in it.]

I'll...continue, then, Coordinator-san.

[trustbound]

You know, if you're going to insist on wording it that way, we don't exactly have duty to rescue around here.

[jesus christ hilda why]

[trustbound]

Yeah, I know enough about you to know that "admirable" isn't a compliment.

[trustbound]

We're all pretty aware of that by now, yeah.

[...and?]