Take Responsibility.

[kingmakereffect]

And once the allotted time for investigating comes to a close, those elevator doors at the end of the first-floor corridor open up; the ride down is fast, smooth, and understandably tense as far as atmosphere goes. You're down to less than half of your original number. The doors slide open and the podium circle comes into view, standing stark against the black-walled courtroom and encircling that pit in the center; Misa and Aqua have joined the ranks of the deceased, photographs in greyscale watching the proceedings from their podiums draped in black. Of course and as always, the deceased aren't the only ones watching; the Kingmaker will make his presence known once everyone has settled at their podium, his voice sounding out through the room for all to hear. "Resilient has been taken from you. Maybe this time the guilty party will actually succeed at fulfilling Rule Seven, seeing as this is the sixth try and all. Whether they manage it is up to the rest of you." Thirteen Survivors remain. However many will be down by the end of the day is up to you.

Comments

[isafraid]

Probably a trick to cover their footsteps, like as not.

[captainobnoxious]

[-- Oh.]

Hydrogen peroxide. [Look, she actually knows this one.] The disinfectant stuff.

[there's the simple leader you know]

[captainobnoxious]

Not if you want to cover a murder.

[amygdalae]

Or prevent us from finding the actual weapon that was used for the deed.

[cherryblooded]

No, actually. There wasn't any blood on the floor and no one's projects were touched.

[You're good, Sigrun.]

It was just the bloody tools and vending machine items.

[goodforsomething]

[Stan takes out his own key and sets it on the podium.]

[notjustawriter]

Tryin' to hide the real cause of death, then.

[cherryblooded]

I don't think so. If it had been the murder weapon, there'd be a pattern to the blood.

It's a decoy, probably.

[captainobnoxious]

[She actually has her in one of her little bags, like a responsible person.]

Got mine!

[captainobnoxious]

[Whew.]

Okay, good. I need to take a few things back to my room when we're done here then.

[notjustawriter]

[Gabriel takes out his key from his pocket and sets it on the podium.]

[goodforsomething]

[Huh.]

Is it cracked or something? [Stan doesn't really know how these things work either]

[cherryblooded]

But why bother? If it's the wrench, which looks most likely - anyone can hit someone with a wrench.

[captainobnoxious]

Yeah. And generally, the more things you stick people with, the harder it is to tell what the weapon was. We should really bring the body to these kind of things.

[isafraid]

[Reaching into his overcoat/inventory, Speedwagon produces his own key.]

Mine's here as it's always been.

[garudynamic]

...wait, so if both her and the dress were really clean is it possible that they... cleaned and redressed her body?

[Okay yeah he sounds pretty grossed out by the idea]

[cherryblooded]

Probably for the best.

[...It's not the time to tell her woodatton is really cute.]

[amygdalae]

Hydrogen peroxide?

[That's... certainly strange.]

It's not exactly what one would use to clean themselves up.

[notjustawriter]

Maybe whoever did it was being overly cautious?

[sleepingkogoro]

[Well done, Bruce. Mouri has something to bring to everyone's attention, too. He...has brought Aqua's default clothes, which seem to be covered on blood. It is not a pretty sight]

It seems Aqua's own clothes were used to wipe the blood off her. As I see it is possible she was wearing these clothes and...for one reason or another, the culprit redressed her? It is unlikely she was using that dress when she was killed. There's too little blood on it, just as Bruce-san said.

[goodforsomething]

Yeah - it'd make sense if it were one of the things from the machine, at least not everybody has those.

Mods?

[isafraid]

Suppose it could be.

[Did he ever actually check that?

....How bout we do a quick check of that.]

[ratingspoint]

Of course.

[His room is pretty and being locked out would suck a lot, even if he doesn't need to sleep, so.

Onto the podium it goes.]

[amygdalae]

[Bruce pulls out his own device and sets it next to Aqua's shiny gold bracelet.]

[cherryblooded]

Normally, she wouldn't be wearing that dress at all, so...

Probably.

[He's not happy at all.]