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

[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.

[sunsong]

...True. But if that's the case...uh, I'm not sure I get the point of trying to burn the body up. Were they tryin' to obscure the real cause of death, or what?

[ninehundredlives]

Maybe they didn't know how cremation works?

[sunsong]

[ A shrug. SOMETIMES SHE REALLY DOESN'T GET THEIR MURDERERS, make that all the time. ]

I guess it's not the most relevant point right now...but that sounds like a good enough explanation to me.

[openterrain]

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

[sunsong]

Oh, I guess that makes sense. [ SHE...SHE DOESN'T SEEM BOTHERED. THE THING THAT HAPPENED TO LOGAN WAS A THING INDEED, but she also lives on an island of creepy superpowered criminals. It kind of just seemed like a run of the mill death to her. ]

[zomgboom]

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

[sunsong]

Well, I knew about the smellin' gross part...I've never really bothered to do shit with the incinerator, though. I'll take your word for it, since you're our expert.

[zomgboom]

I'm just saying, like. If I was gonna burn a body, I'd throw it in the kiln before the incinerator. Waaaaaaaaaaay less likely one of you, like, wakes up and finds it immediately.

[sunsong]

Makes sense to me. You're good at burnin' shit up, right? So, again, you're the expert.

[ SHE MEANS IT IN A COMPLIMENTARY WAY????? she likes tabby, tabby is legit ]