Take Responsibility.

[antitrust]

And when the door at the bottom of those stairs unlocks and it swings open gently of its own accord, allowing everyone back down into the courtroom, there are decidedly fewer of them than there were just a few days ago. The change in the podium circle is massive this time; Dio, Logan, Marty, Yuuri, Hibiki and Mordecai have all joined the ranks of the deceased, their podiums adorned with black cloth and greyscale photographs. Furthermore, the mass of shadows in the pit at the center seems agitated again, shifting and breaching upward toward the glass if one looks at it long enough. It's been something of a bad week, to put it gently. Not that it's evident from the Conductor's behavior; as usual, the proceedings are being watched from behind that panel of translucent glass behind podium 30, and he'll speak as soon as everyone has found their place in the circle. His words are a bit more rapid than usual; he seems interested in this one. "Temporal, Lucent, Vivacious and Universal...all four of them have been taken from you. Does whomever is responsible for this really deserve your compassion? There can be no hesitation; you should offer no mercy. It's you against the guilty. Take control of your fate, and hold them responsible." Thirteen Participants remain. You've lost five people this week, and eight since the last investigation; we'll see how many more you lose today.

Comments

[openterrain]

Something seriously weird happened in the bar. There was a missing liquor bottle. There was also one that was smashed and tossed in the wastebin, but I'm pretty sure it was empty when it broke.

There was a mostly empty salt shaker and some drinks left out on the bar, but for some reason the shaker also had pepper in it.

... and there was a chicken. A dead one.

[icysemblance]

...that is bizarre. Was there anything weird set up around the chicken? I don't know what Team Seance used, but...

[openterrain]

Nothing like that. It looked like someone broke it's neck and was getting ready to slice it up.

[sunsong]

So...someone was going to cook it, probably?

[openterrain]

I think so. I don't know much about farm animals, but it looked like they were trying to be efficient.

I don't know why they didn't do it in the kitchen, though...

[icysemblance]

We don't have the kind of knives that they would need to slice it up, not after - after Dio.

Unless they were planning to use a sword or something...

[openterrain]

But some of us got knives from the vending machine, remember?

[ He's uh. He's gonna pull out his own butterfly knife as an example... ]

Not to mention all the swords. Anything sharp enough could have made that cut.

[clearasmud]

[ wait. ]

Pepper?

[openterrain]

Yeah. Did you find pepper somewhere else?

[clearasmud]

On Mordecai! Specifically, on his fingers!

[openterrain]

[ Weird... ]

But he was in the billiards room, wasn't he?

[ninehundredlives]

I think I found the liquor bottle. It was broken near Marty's body. It smelled like they'd...used it...

[You know, for fire things]

[announcemyvictory]

...like those letters. Alcohol and flames.

[openterrain]

Probably to trying to burn his body. Guess they didn't know that cremating someone isn't that easy...

[ninehundredlives]

If they had water to keep from setting the whole hall on fire too, they must have planned ahead. Either that or they thought they had plenty of time to go fetch some...

[sunsong]

Why not just toss him in the incinerator?

[ WOULDN'T THAT BE MORE EFFICIENT... ]

[ninehundredlives]

Maybe they didn't want to take him all the way downstairs. Or couldn't.

[openterrain]

After what happened to Logan? I don't even want to walk though the foyer during the day.

[zomgboom]

Because it, like, takes forever to start up and, like I said last week, bodies smell gross when you burn them.

[sunsong]

There was a dustpan and shit that was probably used to clean up that bottle, then...

[ That's weird, though. ]

Uh, shit, I guess I didn't count chickens this mornin'...

[openterrain]

... that's weird. Susan said she found another bottle near Marty's body.

[sunsong]

Well...you found the remains of one in the trash can, right? Was only one bottle missin' from the bar? If so, I guess we just have to figure out what the other bottle was...ours would be the outlier, right?

[blazeit]

It... wasn't Dorika, was it?

[ Bakugou doesn't even remember most of his classmates' names back home

but he remembers the chicken's name

RIP HIBIKI... ]

[openterrain]

It wasn't. That was the first thing I checked.

[blazeit]

[ GOOD, SPARE DORIKA ]