trustfell | Take Responsibility.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

...right. About Mordecai... I really don't know what the significance of this could be, but when Sukuyo and I investigated his room, I noticed that his room seemed... strangely empty? The door was unlocked, the bed was made, and there was a strange oval-shaped dent on his pillow.

We sort of split up, and I didn't really get a chance to ask Sukuyo about what she found. So there's that to wait on, I guess.

Seems significant to me...although I was never in his room, so I wouldn't be able to hazard a guess about what might've caused the dent. You said "strange", so I assume it wouldn't be from like, layin' his head on it.

No, it was definitely smaller than that, so it caught my attention.

No one mentioned finding anything that would cause that at the scene, so...the culprit probably stole something, right?

Probably, yes. I really didn't pick up on any mentions of strange oval objects throughout the trial, so... either the culprit has it on their person or it's in their room.

Strangely... empty? What about his vending machine shit?

... Basically, I guess what I'm wondering is... did it look like somebody looted his room?

I don't know if it was looted, necessarily, because everything did seem neater than I would've expected from something like that... But he really should have had more things in there, I think.

That's weird... that's basically the opposite of what Marty's room looked like, it was really messy in there. Could just be a coincidence, but...

Oval? Like his [makes a weird hand gesture around her chest.] thing? The one he had at dinner after the past trial.

Hmmm... maybe, but it's hard to tell from just an oval indentation in a pillow.

Well it was, like, important to him? So he might have, like, slept with it close by.

That bears the question of where it might be now.

Well, it wasn't in Hibiki's room. I, like, haven't seen it.

If it wasn't in his room, and wasn't in Hibiki's, Marty's, or Yuuri's, then my next guess would be that he kept it behind the bar. Anyone check back there?

(no subject)

zomgboom - 2015-12-12 21:32 (UTC) - Expand

icysemblance - 2015-12-12 21:36 (UTC) - Expand

openterrain - 2015-12-12 21:36 (UTC) - Expand

icysemblance - 2015-12-12 21:38 (UTC) - Expand

It was his wife's. It was incredibly important to him, and it really freaked him out that Observant somehow got his hands on it.

Why would anybody want that?

... And just making sure, but it wasn't on or near him when he died... right?

I... I don't know. Youko was the one who checked the body.

[ He kind of wasn't in the right mind to poke around at his dead space dad's corpse. ]

It wasn't.

blazeit - 2015-12-12 21:39 (UTC) - Expand

Do you know what it did?

I didn't really get it, but he said it was for Troubleshooting. Fixing technology and robots that got out of hand and stuff like that.

zomgboom - 2015-12-12 21:33 (UTC) - Expand

openterrain - 2015-12-12 21:34 (UTC) - Expand

housenurse - 2015-12-12 22:14 (UTC) - Expand

openterrain - 2015-12-12 22:15 (UTC) - Expand

housenurse - 2015-12-12 22:16 (UTC) - Expand

icysemblance - 2015-12-12 22:15 (UTC) - Expand

housenurse - 2015-12-12 22:19 (UTC) - Expand

icysemblance - 2015-12-12 22:21 (UTC) - Expand

housenurse - 2015-12-12 22:26 (UTC) - Expand

I wonder what the killer would want with--

[She freezes, looks at the Conductor's podium next to her, and then looks around the room nervously.]

[ Well that's suspicious. ]

Elise...?

announcemyvictory - 2015-12-12 21:32 (UTC) - Expand

blazeit - 2015-12-12 21:35 (UTC) - Expand

openterrain - 2015-12-12 21:35 (UTC) - Expand

Are you okay, Elise?

announcemyvictory - 2015-12-12 21:36 (UTC) - Expand

icysemblance - 2015-12-12 21:39 (UTC) - Expand

I found a few things near Mordecai-san's desk! There was a very lovely letter to his wife, and some other typed papers, and a little notebook full of recipes!

[takes these things out of her apron and puts them on the podium.]

But, the most interesting thing was what wasn't there! There were two very conspicuous empty spaces, one next to the letter and one above it, but I couldn't figure out what used to be there!

Missing stuff? That's... weird. If we're looking at one murderer only, they basically treated his room and Marty's room completely differently.