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]

Check Rick's next.

[blazeit]

[ Since she's nearby and he can speak to her without being overheard (the convenience of being surrounded by death), he'll lower his voice for once. ]

If you're going where I think you're going with this, there's gonna be one thing we have to get out of the way right off the bat. The warhammer.

[sunsong]

[ She'll answer in the same low voice. ]

Yeah, I know. But he's being weird as fuck, so he gets checked before anyone else. [ They can deal with the warhammer after that... ] I know I dismissed your pulley lever thingy earlier, but he is a mad scientist, right?

[blazeit]

Yeah, he basically admitted right at the beginning the only thing stopping him from killing was his grandkid being here, so... He might not even need a motive to kill.

[ ... As Weiss pointed out, he has nothing to lose. ]

Also, if he's our suspect, did he kill all four of them or not? He said at the beginning he thought there was multiple murderers. That could be to throw us off...

[sunsong]

For now, let's continue forward as if they're two separate cases. They're both pretty distinctly different, right...? We can try to tie them together at a later point if it comes to that.

[ Someone killed the people here, and she's not sure if it was one person or two people yet, but...

They just have to go through the possibilities one by one until nothing's left. ]

[blazeit]

[ He's got something else on his mind he wants her to consult on first, but in spirit he is agreeing with that. ]

[icysemblance]

That's entirely possible. The blood writing and body placement could have been done just to make it look like there was more than one murderer.