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

[blazeit]

What's with all of the bloody messages?

... Anyway, do we know for sure they were all written by the people who died? Like... was there blood on their fingertips? It could be the murderer fucking with us.

[clearasmud]

Yeah, I checked for that. Mordecai's writing hand had bloody fingertips.

[sunsong]

Yeah, but...does that really mean they did it? Jean suggested the blood might've come from the chicken...I think it's weird that suddenly more than one of our victims wrote cryptic fuckin' messages in blood.

Isn't it more likely it was a set up by the killer? Like, Mordecai's message might make sense, but Hibiki isn't the type for cryptic fuckin' clues. She would have written something more clear, don't you think?

[perpend]

There was blood on Hibiki's fingertips.

[blazeit]

Hibiki, what the fuck.

[ ... Now that he's gotten that out of the way. ]

So I guess the other thing I'm wondering about is how related all the messages are. "You lose" and Hibiki's messages... kind of match up?

[perpend]

...Foooorgive me for sounding like an old man, but is "you lose" something that's said in video games?

[blazeit]

I'm not really a gaming expert, but yeah, I've seen it in some video games before. Kinda reminds me of the stuff that pops up at the end of a round in a PVP fighting games.

[ ... ]

That's player vs. player.

[perpend]

So we have a D-Pad and "you lose", both of which have to do with video games.

What exactly was the state of the gaming room, again?

[sunsong]

The only thing out of the ordinary was the defaced Go table.

[ THERE WAS ONE CLUE, AND BY GOD SHE FOUND IT ]

[perpend]

Hmm.

I wonder how it connects?

[zomgboom]

Haven't you, like, ever played one? That basically comes up every time you, like, lose.

[perpend]

[Tabby, he's 41.]

Can't say I have, really.

[zomgboom]

[She comes from a world where a sentient Tamagotchi exists. Forgive her for assuming you're normal.]

We need to, like, get you to a Pac-Man machine or something. Seriously.

[perpend]

....Maybe we can petition the Conductor for one.

[That's probably a joke, though.]

[rickdiculous]

[Rick...stares at the D-Pad and frowns.]

That's - both of 'em had dying messages? It's way tooooo weird to be a coincidence. Pretty positive that all these crap is - it's a misdirection.

[blazeit]

... Could be. I mean, the blood on the fingertips doesn't necessarily mean the victims wrote them, if the killer isn't a fucking moron, they would've covered for that anyway.

And the d-pad makes no sense. Like, Hibiki could've written actual words with the effort it took to draw that.

[sunsong]

Yeah, I agree. That's not Hibiki's style at all - she's way more straightforward, right? Like...I can't see her leaving us anything cryptic. Especially if that was all she had time to do...

There are too many bloody messages to assume that they're all by the victims. I could buy one of them being legit - Mordecai's seems the least weird - but I'm not even willin' to bet on that.

[blazeit]

Yeah, we know almost for certain that "you lose" was done by the killer, so it'd make sense to assume that at least Hibiki's is a fake dying message too. I refuse to think she'd suddenly pick then of all times to decide to scribble something confusing anyway.

[sunsong]

Besides, Hibiki's message kind of points to the game room, right? Where my other message was. ...Maybe they, uh, wanted to be sure we saw it...?

[ninehundredlives]

Does it? It's not as if there's any video games in there.

[rickdiculous]

Yeah, exactly. If - if she was bleeding out or something, she totally could've wrote somebody's name or - or anything remotely helpful.

[perpend]

I've been wondering about that.

She bled out, but it wasn't from puncture wounds or being stabbed-- it looked a little like someone attacked her with the war hammer. She apparently dragged herself to the storage room.</b? Would she even have had time to write anything?

[rickdiculous]

I don't think it's entirely im-[urp]-impossible. It just seems like bullshit that she'd leave - leave a hint like that.

[blazeit]

[ HOLY SHIT HIBIKI HE'LL CEDE THE NO. 1 HERO TITLE TO HER BECAUSE THAT'S HARDCORE. ]

... Why would she want to drag herself to the storage room? That's the wrong way to go if she was thinking she could escape somehow.

[perpend]

I don't know. It's... odd.

She was also surrounded by the petitions from the fridge.

[And then he pulls out a little baggy from his pocket. It contains what looks like smashed up bits of silver.]

...There was also this, but I dooon't have a clue what it could be for.