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

[announcemyvictory]

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.]

[openterrain]

[ Well that's suspicious. ]

Elise...?

[announcemyvictory]

Sukuyo was trying to summon ghosts. What have... people been using for that? A mix of things they've heard about. Blood, salt, things that were important to the dead.

[blazeit]

Wait, but... if she took it for that purpose, it'd have to be after he was already dead, or else it wouldn't have summoned jack shit.

[openterrain]

-- hey, you're right! But...

[ He frowns. ]

Does that mean the murderer took it after killing him? Or that they were trying to get in touch with his wife...?

[icysemblance]

Are you okay, Elise?

[announcemyvictory]

It's that ghost nonsense everyone's going on about, it was important to Sukuyo, wasn't it?

[icysemblance]

...yeah, but I don't think it would be important enough to kill for, would it?