Take Responsibility.

[wordsmithery]

The ride up to the courtroom occurs, as before, after an allotted period of time for investigation; the elevator waits patiently for you at each floor - third, second, first - before sending you upwards and on your way to the courtroom high above. As always, the trip is a smooth one; granted, after everything that the morning had been, any small comfort that fact may bring is likely not helping much. There are three less of you this time around, a fact reflected in the podium circle standing in the middle of the room; Alani, Milla and Chiyuki have all joined the ranks of the deceased, their podiums draped in black and their portraits in greyscale keeping a watchful eye over the rest of the trial circle. There's still no one present in the lectern above; however, once everyone has found their place in the circle, the Wordsmith's voice can be heard throughout the room. "I can see that matters are beginning to seem dire for you, Apprentices. I am sure that you all cared for Sympathetic in some measure—all except the guilty party. And now it falls to you once again to determine who that is. For your own sake as well as Sympathetic's, hold her killer accountable and have them take responsibility for their actions." Twenty-four Apprentices remain. We'll see how many remain at the end of the day.

Comments

[tsugomori]

A broken cuestick? That is quite odd.

[ ... ]

I suppose it'd be difficult if she had been hit with it at this point, hm?

[ Or someone else, for that matter... ]

[avoidcomplications]

She and her killer may have fought, possibly. If it wasn't broken by the explosion, that seems the logical next step.

[tsugomori]

[ He'll nod. ]

That sounds about right. Then, the explosion would have naturally had to have come after.

[avoidcomplications]

Of course. I find that a bit excessive, to say nothing of the mess...Is it possible the killer wanted to cover up or destroy evidence?

[tsugomori]

[ ... ]

Well, there was a huge explosion and all, so it's possible. Although, I'm not sure what evidence they would try to hide or destroy.

[avoidcomplications]

Sodium azide is a highly dangerous chemical. There's no way someone would be stupid enough to risk even touching it unless they knew what they were doing or they were desperate to destroy something.

[tsugomori]

They did seem to know what they were doing -- or thought they did.

[ He takes a breath. ]

After all, there were a lot of things in that room, I'm guessing that is one of that things that may have a toxic label on it.

[ Hearing the explanation given regarding it, that is. ]

[avoidcomplications]

Presumably.

[...hm.]

Would poison have even worked on her?

[tsugomori]

She was a mannequin, so I suppose not, but...

[ ... ]

I don't think the culprit knew that, and it's possible the culprit didn't know about the secondary effect of that chemical too.

[avoidcomplications]

If that's the case, it's a miracle we're not all dead. If that had reacted to anything there would have been a serious problem.

That said, perhaps our suspects can be limited to people who initially reacted with surprise to learning what Chiyuki was; in other words, who didn't know?

[matchbreaker]

She still ate and drank as far as I saw. But at least where her skin was flaking, she didn't feel a lot of pain.

[ She did wince, but she said that was possibly in her head... right. ]

[avoidcomplications]

I can't say I understand how that would work, but very well. Still, in order for her to be poisoned she would need muscle fibers, kidneys, a bloodstream--anything I'm sure most of us rather assumed she had.

[tsugomori]

Oh, I see. So maybe she could still be poisoned. But, clearly, it still didn't work out that way.

[ Hmm, he tilts his head a bit. ]

[introspects]

It's...possible they did fight, actually; I found some of Chiyuki-san's shards in the game room, so that might be a sign of a struggle that may have happened before the explosion...

[avoidcomplications]

Ah, that's right--I did happen to see some paint flakes on the floor in there as well. They could have had an altercation in there first, followed by Chiyuki fleeing to the pool hall.

[introspects]

Paint flakes...

[ ... ] So... Maybe the damaged pool stick was used by Chiyuki-san out of self-defense; caused the bruising; and the killer used the cold pack to ice it down?

[avoidcomplications]

That sounds reasonable to me.

[oyashiromama]

But... That explosion, it- it had to have been planned. Could the culprit have meant to use it in the game room, and...Chiyuki delayed it?

[introspects]

That's true... Maybe the culprit could have left the shards and the paint there after the explosion happened instead.

[foundfate]

The pool stick was in the billiards room, right? What if it went like this: the killer and Chiyuki fought in the game room first, and Chiyuki got hurt there. She tried to run, and she ran right into the billiards room, which is where a bomb was. Which then exploded and killed her. The killer then let the pool stick in the billiards room to make it seem like it got damaged in the explosion, rather than in a fight.

Does that sound possible?

[neverheardofhim]

Sounds like the killer would have had to rely on too much chance. There's more than exit from the Game Room.

[quadruples]

Exactly. If I were Chiyuki I would head for the stairs and not the billiards room.

[foundfate]

I guess that depends on if the killer had planted the bomb in the billiards room, or if he was carrying it and threw it into the billiards room after Chiyuki ran in there.

Also, depending on how they were standing in the game room, she might have been forced to go up into the billiards room to get away from the killer.

[feistytrader]

...What if she was knocked out?

[It's... Not a perfect theory, but here he goes anyway.]

The killer left the explosive chemical stuff in the billiards room, because they didn't want to risk it exploding. Then later, after hanging out with Chiyuki in the game room, they knocked her out, dragged her back into the room, and threw it at her.

[tsugomori]

[ ... ]

That's a little odd.

[ His eyebrows furrow, but he'll accept the explanation for now. He probably is just a little slow at following. ]