Take Responsibility.

[kingmakereffect]

And once the allotted time for investigating comes to a close, those elevator doors slide open at the end of the first-floor corridor, offering another of those fast, smooth rides down to that black void of a courtroom Twelve out of the original twenty-seven are dead; there are four less of you present for this trial than there were last week. That's incredibly obvious as soon as the doors slide open and the podium circle comes into view where it's encircling that dark pit in the center of the room; Norman, the King, Tarrlok, and Lynne have joined the deceased, photographs in greyscale watching the proceedings from their podiums draped in black. Of course and as always, the Kingmaker is watching too; he waits until everyone is settled at their podiums to begin speaking, though it's still impossible to tell exactly where his voice is coming from. "Assured and Perceiving have been taken from you. You guys are really getting excited, aren't you? Two people dead in one night... Whether the guilty party succeeds or not, though, is up to the rest of you." Fifteen Survivors remain. However many will be down by the end of the day is up to you.

Comments

[amygdalae]

Yes.

[Hello, yes, Bruce is here and ready to give his report like a good doctor.]

I'll be listing everything I've found on the first victim that we discovered. Detective Mouri and Mr. Colress have their own things too, so I'll let them talk about it after me.

[It's kind of terrible how used they are to this by now. It's not easy, but they're... used to it.

...he'll think about that later.]

The cause of death is, in all likelihood, his broken neck. The damage done there was fatal, and there are also no other signs of injury on his body aside from bruising that seems consistent with a fall down from the stairs. The blood on him is already dry by the time of the examination, which means that the incident had taken place a good while ago.

In addition, I also found this [Holds up a small ziploc bag of glitter for everyone to see] on his body. It was pretty much everywhere on him, as far as I can tell - the glitter in here is from after I got it off my hands.

[sleepingkogoro]

B-but the body can't have fallen down the stairs! At least not where the body was found.

It could be possible he was killed in a set of stairs higher than where it was actually found, though. Not that it explains the broken neck.

[penduli]

They might've moved him so he wouldn't be in the way of the stairs and they wouldn't have to step on him to get over him, or something like that.

[ratingspoint]

Couldn't he have broken his neck in the fall? Humans break easily in some places, and I'm pretty sure the spine is one of them.

[amygdalae]

As you mentioned earlier, there is a high possibility that his body had indeed been moved after the deed was done. He could have easily fallen from elsewhere and then brought to where we all discovered him.

[happysweets]

But where else could he have fallen from, do you think?

[amygdalae]

The stairs would naturally be the easiest way; just push him off and let gravity do the rest of the work.

[But even then, would it be that easy...?]

[goodforsomething]

There's not a lotta people here who could even lug the guy very far. He was pretty huge.

[No one has any business being 6'3'', honestly]

[amygdalae]

Even being able to push him would have still required some amount of strength, I think.

[He was tall and built. That's like double quarterback or something.]

[garudynamic]

...well the dojo mats were moved around, right? Could someone have snapped his neck on the hard floor?

[It's exactly why him and Mouri hadn't done the demo until they had the equipment for it, after all]

[amygdalae]

Maybe... but again, that would most likely mean that somebody actually had had strength to throw him in the first place.

[happysweets]

But then they would have had to lug him all the way to the bottom floor from the fifth....

[garudynamic]

Glitter? Well hell, with all the costumes last night that coulda come from a lot of places.

[captainobnoxious]

My thoughts exactly. I'm gonna be coughing that out for the next week.

[a minor exaggeration]

[happysweets]

S-sorry! Misa-Misa might have went a little overboard with it, huh...it's a little tough to get out.

[isafraid]

Not much sense in apologizing for it right now.

[besides it was fun.]

[penduli]

I think Mr. Tarrlok's death might've been an accident.

[ It's not just conjecture either! He's brought his notebook today, and in that notebook, there's... some scraps of paper. They're almost too signed to make out, but Black'll lay them flat on his podium as best as he can manage. ]

Yosuke and I found these in the incinerator—which was turned on by the way. I guess we were lucky that we got there in time before it all got burned up...

[ But again: why would you ever use the incinerator. ]

There's not a lot to make out except for two words: TARRLOK and ACCIDENT. [ which is why he thinks it may...be an accident, congratulations Black, you did the fucking detective work. ]

[sleepingkogoro]

Idiot...did you think the culprit wrote a note saying it was an accident and then decided to burn it?

[...no, that won't fly]

I think it is more likely that paper is from something like, I don't know, the secrets the Kingmaker gave a week or so ago.

[goodforsomething]

Hey! There's no reason to snap at the kid.

[TWINS GOTTA STICK TOGETHER in the absence of their actual twins and/or a good relationship with them, lawl]

[ratingspoint]

...Maybe someone was investigating.

[Mettaton, what- ]

Wasn't the body moved a bit? Maybe someone found it before we did and was looking it over. Making notes for later.

[goodforsomething]

You're thinkin' Lynne found him?

[penduli]

I honestly feel like if people were going to burn their secrets, they would've done so by now. Or, you know, eaten them or something. That's a faster way to get rid of things you don't want anyone else to know.

[ Or like, put them in the bottom of your trunk with a bunch of weapons you keep getting you have no use for. ]

[amygdalae]

But if it was merely an accident, that doesn't explain why the body was even moved in the first place.

[Since its at least clear that the position he was found it definitely didn't come from a fall down the stairs.]

There's also too many gaps to make it concrete.

[Actually, wait--]

Can I see the paper?

[penduli]

[ Because no one wants to step on a dead body, guys!! Oh my god.

But yes, Black'll go carefully deliver these scraps. Be careful; they are pretty heavily singed, and that makes it pretty hard to read. ]

Here you are, Mr. Banner.

[goodforsomething]

You want this sign-out sheet too?

[Might be good to compare, they both include the same word and everything]