Take Responsibility.

[trustbound]

This particular investigation was likely a difficult one, for various reasons; whether through frustration or sheer disgust at the level of depravity involved, it's been a long day already. It doesn't seem like it will get any easier by the time the door to the courtroom unlocks, gently swinging open to allow everyone downstairs. As always, the stairwell is dark, but the courtroom is already lit up down below, a thin amount of light bouncing up the corridor to guide everyone downstairs; the podium circle stands stark and silent in the center, marking spots for both the living and the dead; by now, the latter far outnumber the former. Kirei, Milla, Angel, and Susan have all had their spots altered, their podiums draped in black cloth and their portraits set atop them; they'll be joining those watching all of you in greyscale as you work today. Do you think you'll do them justice? Either way and as always, the thirty-sixth podium remains empty and unadorned. Once everyone has found their place in the circle, Jericho can be heard over the public-address system; he doesn't seem to have settled any from the investigation. "Peerless, Edifying, and Adroit have all been taken from you - and hey, it looks like you found all of them, we appreciate that. But even if you hadn't, you'd still be down here, and I'm sure I don't need to tell you what you have to do as a result of everything that's happened. This is another one of those things that's either gonna be great or it's going to be terrible, though maybe I'll add in a third option of 'interesting' this time, just due to the setup. As always, you know what's going on here - the innocent versus the guilty. Seventh time lucky, maybe. As always, do your best!" Thirteen Participants remain. We'll see how many leave here at the end of the day.

Comments

[chessturner]

[Kyrie looks around the room. It sure looks emptier now that so many people have died...]

Three victims...we should take this calmly. Forget about looking at the bigger picture for now.

Which incident should be solved first?

[hesperos]

Maybe it'll be easier to tell which might be easier to start with based on what was found. Oh and speaking of which...

In the art storage room's secret hallway, I kind of noticed there were a few things here or there.

The door wasn't closed all the way, for some reason. There were saws from the workshop in here -- but only the hacksaw and handsaw had blood all over them.

[ ... ]

...And there was Angel's arm in there too. Along with a used stun grenade.

[bloodisthicker]

...

[okay. boy does he ever just want to get this over with. because holy shit. holy... shit.]

So. I found Millia's legs in the last stall in the fourth four men's room. I think I also may have found the murder weapon?

[he puts the handle of the Attack on Titan sword thing on his podium.]

...there was also a smiley face painted on the stall. Also this... stupid ransom note thing.

[He puts that on his podium.]

Why. Why any of this.

[perpend]

[What the fuck is any of this.]

How horrific...

[destage]

...Did that smiley happen to be painted with black paint? I found an open can of it in the art room's sink, along with a thick paintbrush. They weren't cleaned off or anything like that, so...

[Sayaka shifts a bit in her spot. This is...fucking mortifying? Like, christ.]

There was also, um, blood on the bottom rim.

[chessturner]

My...we are dealing with quite the smug culprit.

[So unnecessary]

[hesperos]

[ ... What even. ]

Guess our culprit thinks they're funny or something.

[matchbreaker]

That note's probably has a lot of your writing all hacked up, right?

[ Given that her collection of notes that was clearly cannibalized from was afterparty, party, and meeting invitations but didn't include Elda and Aligula's at all. ]

[notaccurate]

[Yeah, let's look at that note instead of the other shit because hooooly crap this trial is ten kinds of wrong.]

The random capital letters... 'nonsense'?

[evilfrenzy]

Ah, so that's where they went.

[...attempts are being made to appear calm over here in the sea of death podiums.]

In the hallway that Milla's remains were in, there were black arrows painted on the walls, pointing down toward that bathroom. Seems like we've got a trend of cute notes as well, because they left one near Milla as well.

[Said note goes on his own podium. It can be passed around for those who want to compare.]

[bloodbiter]

[A sigh.]

Why move her limbs...?

[sleepytimegal]

You found a note too?

[ Hi, Alex hates this. She places one on her podium. ]

I think I found the ending. Just so you know, killer? Not funny! I- ...I investigated the music room, and there was, um...a severed hand on the piano. Wire was used to point the fingers- [ ugh. give her a moment. ] ...in the direction of the note. It was hidden in the string instruments.

[ Hoooo boy. ]

Besides all that BS. I found Susan's medical toolbox. It was open a little? There were...surgical gloves, gauze, and tape missing, and it had...blood splattered on its corner.

[evilfrenzy]

[With his own findings out of the way...]

Yeah, that could be it. The stab wounds looked like something you would see from a sword more than a knife or something like that. [...] Is that the entire blade, though? It seems...off. But I did not find anything in or around Milla.

[matchbreaker]

[ Elda is pissed as she steps in here today. She's yawning, threatening to nod off if not for how angry she is to see Susan dead. Once inside here, she sets down several things on the podium. She sets down her collection of cannibalized notes she got from the workshop, as well as a pair of scissors she found there as well. She also, curiously enough, has Ditty with her this time as well, and seems to be petting the blob as a means of centering herself.

But when she walks in, she immediately sets the Silph Scope she meant to put in here to check for ghosts onto Fern's podium and then kicks the podium for good measure. Who gives a shit about ghosts right now? ]

All of the saws were taken from the Workshop. Surprise. Someone cut a bunch of people up.

[bloodbiter]

I... looked over Susan's body.

[A breath.]

There was a serious wound on her head. I doubt she was hit by anything wooden, because there were no splinters or the like in the injury. There was bruising around it, too. Her right hand was missing, and it, ah, looks as though it was - sawed off. There was a black piece of cloth tied around her wrist, as though someone was trying to stop the bleeding. It was tied tightly, tightly enough that they were really trying to do so, I think. There was also... a note in her other hand, which was tied shut with wire. It said go up and give her a round of applause, everyone, don't be shy here.

[She'll set it down on her podium so anyone can look at it if they'd like to come around.]

She also had some other bruises on her person, so I believe she must have tried to fight back. Lastly... In the room where we found her body, someone had taken a few items from one of the shelves. A can of black paint, a paintbrush, a pair of scissors, glue, and some of the wire.

[chessturner]

A wire...in that case, it seems likely Maxwell-san and Ashworth-san were murdered by the same person.

That'd leave Angel-san as the outlier here. A second culprit, perhaps?

[matchbreaker]

[ Applause. Applause as her hand was hacked off. Elda kicks Fern's podium again and squeezes Ditty, who looks up at his sort of friend with some concern. Elda then forces an exhale and: ]

That note's made of hacked up letters too, right?

[heritrix]

[Phew. Okay. Rin listens to the others for a bit, then takes a breath to compose herself before starting.]

I examined Angel's body. There were no defensive injuries on her person, so I think she was taken by surprise.

[She was so small, she probably wouldn't have been able to meet brute force so well even if she did, but there's another factor that makes Rin say this.]

She was struck in the back of the head just once, but hard. I'd guess whatever was used was made out of metal, because while it looked like she was hit with the edge of something, I couldn't find anything splintered off inside the injury.

[And Sayaka actually did find a bloody metal thing in the same room, but that's a lot to process all at once, let alone the other things she noted. She'll let them take that in before moving on to the other evidence that stood out to her.]

[matchbreaker]

[ Good on Susan then, for managing to get defensive wounds. Elda smirks and plays with Ditty-in-ball-form ]

Okay, so that's two metal head injuries. Unless it's a saw, anyone got any other bright ideas?

[destage]

...That must have been what the paint can was used for. Angel-san likely wouldn't have stood a chance...

[Ugh. What the actual fuck?]

[evilfrenzy]

[...man, with three victims, they are going to have a lot of information to sort through. But Rideaux figures he may as well get his findings out there asap.]

I handled Milla's body.

[He keeps wanting to just use "Maxwell", but for simplicity's sake...]

For those of you who didn't see, her legs below the knee were removed via what appears to be, judging by the site of removal, some sort sawing tool. Strips of black cloth were used for a tourniquet, and from what I can tell, this seems to have been done after she died.

As for what may have caused her death, well. Someone certainly had a grand time with her, because her midsection was full of deep stab wounds. However, being what she was, she did put up a fight before the killer got stab-happy with her. Her arms had defensive wounds on them.

[...]

I am not quite sure where to place this, so I suppose I'll tack it on at the end. I noted that her hair was braided, which struck me as a bit odd since I have no recollections of her doing that regularly.

[hesperos]

Her hair was braided, huh? Maybe she was out that night spending time with someone before all of ... that happened.

[ As in, maybe that 'spending time' happened to include some hair braiding and all that. ]

wound & clothing check

[hesperos]

So, it's highly likely our killer went ahead and gotten themselves injured. I'm going to be taking a good look at everyone's hands and arms, so you might as well show what's going on there.

[ Yuri is actually more or less checking to see if anyone's sporting any kinds of cuts on their hands and arms, but any super recent bruises will do too. He'll be also seeing if anything's weird going on with someone's clothing too.

As for himself, Yuri's hands are looking clean; there is a bruise from earlier in the week on one of his arms but that's just about it. Also, there are no tears in his clothing and he's wearing the same black clothing as usual. ]

[destage]

[Sayaka's clean; her arms and hands are pristine and uninjured, and her clothing is perfectly fine. She's got black stockings, but they're fine too.]

[innocentloveholic]

[ Well, everything's a little damning, but apparently this is what's getting her, and Aligula laughs for a little longer before she slams her hands on her podium (ow) and pushes herself up onto it; it's just to sit, she likes being up, she likes being taller than people.

Gives her a better view, too. ]

You're all a bunch of stupid, dumb-dumb meanieheads! Picking on a poor little girl like me! [ How cruel! ] Sure, there's a lot I know how to do, but you really think I'd go ahead and do something like this? When I didn't even do anything to save my precious Brody and Hummer?

You think any of you is more important to me than them?

[ ...........BZZT, she's making a bzzt-bzzt noise. ]

Because you'd be totally, one-hundred percent wrong. So there's no no no noooooooo way it could ever be me!

[ So see, this whole thing sounds like a load of nonsense to her. ]

[matchbreaker]

[ Aligula... ]

Aren't those ones the sort you felt could be depended upon to survive their game?

[ Unlike James. She's... James must be the victim in the first case by now. Maybe he'll survive another week, at best. But all the same, she bites her nail because despite everything in the movement of the other woman upsets her. ]

SELECTION.

[trustbound]

[And eventually, Jericho's voice can be heard over the system again; this whole thing is a shitshow, and if nothing else he's seemed to be just as here for that as Aligula usually is.]

All right, so that was a damn mess – are you all happy with that? Because if you're happy with that, then we can go ahead and throw a vote down, if that's what we're all feeling right now.

As always, either the innocent or the guilty are going to die here; cast your vote for whomever you think is responsible for the deaths that happened today, and we'll see what everything looks like coming out the other side.

[destage]

[There's...well, a couple of seconds of hesitation before Sayaka votes, but those seconds are just kind of spent staring at Aligula with a cold expression.

"If it was anyone but you or Sayaka touching me, Elda, they totally would've regretted it."

...mmph.]

> AMOROUS

ACCOUNTABILITY.

[trustbound]

[And once the votes come in, the lights go out, once again casting the room into nothing but darkness and shadow; it's heavy, oppressive, lasting for several moments too long to be comfortable, and it's only broken when those flickering lights beneath the podiums begin to blink into existence.

So much of the pit is cast in crimson light by now; almost two-thirds of it. It's almost overwhelming compared to the mostly-solid ring of white light around the arena that was present here almost two months ago; just the same, the lights come on one right after another, relentless and steady, and while the abundance of red light renders the entire thing far dimmer than it used to be, it's more than enough to make one thing clear: Aligula is no longer among you. She's gone from the circle entirely, with no sound and no indication of resistance; as always, Hilda is waiting for her down in the pit itself.

She's standing beneath Podium 13, on the edge of the largest section of empty podiums shining out crimson down below; she tips her head back, addressing Jericho quietly before turning her attention back to the door. Unlike the last time she was down here, it seems she has something with her already – a notebook or a journal of some sort that she's keeping folded to her chest. It's a different one than the thing she's usually writing in, for those who have seen her in the office over the past few weeks; this one is black, and looks like it's gone through some trying times.

The door beneath Podium 3 recesses back into the wall, sliding open easily as Aligula steps out; she seems to be trying to keep her head held high as she enters, though her hands are clutching at the fabric of her skirt a little too firmly to be natural. She makes her way to the center, where she promptly folds her arms across her chest in a tight, decisive motion – almost a huff, really – as she turns to look at Hilda; she begins tapping her foot in an almost irritated motion, as though she's just waiting for her to get everything over with, but her expression is almost unreadable as she does it.

It's a good show, but there are a few things that are off with it; it's something that would probably piss her off to watch, but you know what, things are always different when you're on this end of things.

Hilda approaches her calmly, in sharp contrast to the manic, erratic behavior from Kirei's execution; she opens the notebook as she approaches, holding one of the pages open and facing Aligula, though she stops well before she's close enough for Aligula to try to snatch it out of her hands. Just enough that she can see what's written there.

The words Aligula says then aren't enough to be heard, but they can be seen; most of the conversation that's taking place there can, actually.

"Soooo... What's that?"
"Anyone whose name is written in this book will die."

It's hard to tell what Aligula's doing with her face, then; after a moment she laughs, the reaction abrupt and sharp.

"How to~tally lame! You're just going to write my name in that silly little book and expect me to lie down and die?"
"You have a minute and thirty seconds left."
"Until what?"

Hilda doesn't answer her; she simply snaps the book closed and turns to leave Aligula be, returning to the walls even as Aligula continues to speak to her – her tone is sharp and indignant, rising to a pitch that can actually be heard, even to those still standing around the podium circle.

"Until what, Coordy-B? You go to all the effort of putting on a show for everyone else, and you expect me to just stand around and wait for whatever's going to happen? Ooh, but you gave Inquisitive a few seconds, too, didn't you – is it some sort of denied climax kink? We go out when you want us to, not a second before?"

Hilda doesn't answer; she just leans back against the wall, and she keeps her gaze fixed on Aligula, who's walking over to her now, her speech continuing with the same fevered vehemence.

"Why are you being like this, you frigid jerkface? Would it be so hard to actually put some effort into killing me, instead of just writing my name down in your lame little notebook? Neither of us want to be doing this, right? So you might as well make it fun!"

Hilda simply continues to stare at her, even as Aligula proceeds to get up in her face; she isn't much shorter than Hilda is, and her gloved hands are quick to bunch up fistfuls of Hilda's collar, shaking her a little as she does so.

"Will you at least tell me how your dumb-dumb book is supposedly going to kill me?"

Hilda tips her head a little bit; she finally answers, though the response is something that's seen rather than heard.

"Technically? A broken heart."

Aligula freezes.]

Good night, Amorous.

[Jericho's voice can be heard as Aligula's hands loosen against Hilda's collar; her face has once again gone strange and unreadable, though it isn't long before her mouth quirks a bit into something that's trying to be a smirk, a derisive laugh, anything but what she ends up doing – a small sound escapes her, carried on a jagged breath, and her hands fly suddenly to the center of her chest. Her fingertips dig in sharply to the fabric there, as though she's trying to pull at some sort of pressure that's building there, attempting to relieve it in some way as her breaths shorten and she begins shaking tightly. But there's no external source of it; it's all just building from inside, and her respiration becomes more and more erratic until she sucks in a sharp breath and seems to have trouble releasing it again.

She's bent forward a bit, folding in on herself as her chest heaves once, twice; she staggers a little, trying to catch her balance before she drops to her side on the floor, thoroughly unconscious as full cardiac arrest sets in.

Hilda approaches her after a long moment, kneeling down next to Aligula's body to verify that she's gone; she looks up a bit and nods, the gesture slight but clearly intended more for Jericho than anyone here. He'll speak up again once that's done; it really does seem to be the end of it.]

Good job, as always! You guys are pretty good at this, I'm really proud of you. Hell, maybe some of you would do well in my sort of position, if it were an option for you.

And because I'm sure you're wondering, after all of her bullshit - Amorous wasn't the fourth of those people you want to seek out. Don't get me wrong, she was fucked up? Like, "messed with a death god's head so bad he probably had to be completely reset" levels of fucked up. But that's not the sort of fucked up that we're looking for.

But you know, I'm sure you'll find them soon enough. It's not like your numbers are so huge you won't just hit them by chance, maybe, if you're lucky. But anyway, I've kept you guys for a while – whether you're lucky or good, you've been doing a great job lately. Nothing else for you to do today, though; head back upstairs whenever you want. We're done here.

[matchbreaker]

[ . . . What an anticlimactic way to go. Elda frowns at it, but then she nods, watching it until the end when Jericho speaks up. Her eyes widen a little, but she's...

She's too upset now to plot about all this. Far too upset. Too upset and too tired. Get her out of here. ]