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]

Or it was the closest place to hide some evidence?

[....But Speedwagon is a gentleman, just saying.]

[cherryblooded]

The men's room is closer to the music hall by a bit, if I remember correctly.

[isafraid]

....Odd.

Would have been a bit easier to frame one of us, I'd think.

[cherryblooded]

Maybe. Though I don't know how you'd specifically implicate one of the men, unless it was through your choice of vending machine trash.

[ratingspoint]

It's actually smarter to not implicate anyone, isn't it?

[Oh, look, he's deciding to try to be useful.]

I mean, look at where we are now. We're all pretty sure it wasn't Sigrun, and that leaves us with no direction in particular. If they'd tried to frame somebody specific, there's more of a chance they'd mess up.

[cherryblooded]

Agreed. Framing someone is harder than it looks.

[He... he knows from experience.]

[ratingspoint]

So it's better to leave it vague and hope the group tears itself apart.

[We're. Going to be here for a while, aren't we.]

[cherryblooded]

[...]

We could smell everyone, I suppose.

[ratingspoint]

We tried that with Norman, remember?

[We were thwarted by the fact that the man took a fucking shower.]

[captainobnoxious]

[who the fuck takes showers]

I'd really rather forget that.

[cherryblooded]

Shame people take showers around here. [Except Mettaton, of course, but it's not Mettaton so it doesn't matter.]

[isafraid]

It's actually a bit of a small blessing when you think about it.

[It's not like Speedwagon ever got to take this many showers in his life.]

Unfortunately, we'll have to think of something else.

[captainobnoxious]

I know someone vetoed that earlier, but as your leader I say go for it.

[Just. Keep in mind that some of us may smell like it because they were handling peroxide-related things, like Sigrun herself.]

[cherryblooded]

Well. Can't say no to my captain.

[Time for a sniff test!

Any of you guys smell like peroxide? Besides Sigrun.]

[sleepingkogoro]

[This really is getting kind of awkward. At least Mouri isn't the one doing this, it seems kind of humilliating.

But no, no peroxide over here]

[amygdalae]

[Nothing here either. But probably lots of blood since Bruce was hovering over Aqua's head injury for a very long while.]

[goodforsomething]

[No, but I'm so pleased that this is happening]

[penduli]

[ Nope, but also, why is he suffering so many humiliating injustices today? Is this karma coming back to bite him in the ass? ]

[notjustawriter]

[No, not here.

This is really awkward.]

[pokexplorer]

[Nothing here!

...We sure are doing this.]

[isafraid]

[I... actually don't know how to answer this.

No? Probably not. I mean he was handling Aqua's device so there might be the barest scent of it?]

...Ah! This reminds me. [Once more, Speedwagon produces the toolbox.]

Found this under the piano, not a spec of blood on it. Might be worth a smell?

[ratingspoint]

[Smells like Mettaton.

...Also peroxide, incidentally. Not strongly or anything, but.]

[isafraid]

[sigh.]

Times like this I wish I could tell a person's morals simply by scent.

[ratingspoint]

...Can you actually do that normally?

[the fuck kind of magic]

[captainobnoxious]

... I mean, I'll say what everyone is obviously thinking and that if the captain goes down, so does her ship. If they wanted to get rid of me it's not like they wouldn't have a reason for it.

[Since. They all adopted her rightly as their leader.]

And then we're looking at mutiny.