Take Responsibility.

[kingmakereffect]

And after a given amount of time, those elevator doors at the end of the first-floor corridor open up; as it was last week, the ride down is smooth and quick-moving, even if there are less of you this week. (Technically, you're only down by one in the elevator; Bruce has ensured that Pearl is with you in some way, albeit unconventionally and by the grace of Ziploc.) However, when the doors open up to the podium circle standing in the middle of that black void of a courtroom, there's no mistaking the fact that there are fewer people present than there were last week – Kamui and Pearl have joined those with podiums draped in black, their framed profile portraits watching the proceedings in shades of grey. It's still impossible to tell exactly where the Kingmaker is watching the proceedings from, though it's obvious that he is; he'll wait until everyone is settled before he speaks, his voice coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. "Devoted has been taken from you. All of you know what the stakes are now, but this happened anyway – looks like someone's determined. Whether they succeed or not is up to you." Twenty-four Survivors remain. We'll see how many are still standing by the end of the day.

Comments

[amygdalae]

[It's not that Bruce hasn't handled dead bodies before, but this is strange even by his standards - and his standards tend to be pretty high for these kinds of cases.

Still, he handles it all as well as he can; the black void of this trial room greets them once more, and as they all peter out towards their respective positions Bruce takes a moment to go to Pearl's podium and sort of... carefully place the ziploc bag there. Just for this trial; it simply doesn't feel right to just keep her in a pocket or something.

Once that's done Bruce goes back to his podium, giving himself a moment to relax before he starts to focus. The shock of everything has passed, and his mind is clear now. They have another case to solve.]