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

[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.

[withabigsmile]

Video games and game room do share a word in common!

[ninehundredlives]

With all the effort that must have taken, you would think she could have just written "games" or something.

[sunsong]

I can't think of anything else it points to.

[ IT COULD BE SOMETHING ELSE, but she can't tell what it might be otherwise... ]

And the message in the game room is just plain weird. Nothing else was in there that I could tell...like, that was legitimately the only thing out of place.

[blazeit]

I think what you're saying makes sense. Why leave a message only for it to not be seen?

[sunsong]

Granted, I don't get the fuckin' point of the "you lose" message other than to be a little bitch about things, but.

[ SHE'S UNIMPRESSED, CULPRIT. ]

Clearly they felt it had a purpose, so...

[blazeit]

Gonna make a wild guess. The purpose was probably to be the biggest piece of shit asshole.

[ he's not impressed either... ]

[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.

[sunsong]

The petitions? What the hell...was she trying to compare handwriting or something...?

[ninehundredlives]

Maybe to that easel?

[icysemblance]

It's possible. Does anyone have any of the petitions, or were they all destroyed?

[perpend]

[Don't worry, he's got you covered.]

I have them right here.

[sunsong]

That makes sense to me. Maybe that message was done before Hibiki and Yuuri were murdered?

[withabigsmile]

[...???]

Could I see that for a second?

[What is it, something from the vending machine?]

[perpend]

Of course.

[Here you go, Blue.

Whatever it is, it's definitely not part of the Golden Gun, but other than that, it's not immediately clear to him what it is.]

[withabigsmile]

[Silver mechanical parts...]

Did someone have a laptop or something?