trusthell | Take Responsibility.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Fine, then tell me how monster souls work... and what's all this about souls and changing colors for one thing.

Monsters are weaker than humans are, fullstop!

[And that much does seem entirely genuine and at least vaguely less...all of this.]

If a human with a strong enough will - to survive or to kill us, either/or - tries to fight me, I'll die. And if I don't want to fight them, I can't; my soul is what keeps my body functioning, it's what ties me to this world, and if it doesn't want to respond to something, I can't disobey it.

...As for colors, mine is white. If I absorbed a human's soul, which I could do if I had magic but I don't right now, it might not stay that way? I've never done it, so I wouldn't know.

...Yours is purple, by the way. It's pretty. Aqua's was yellow. If I had the soul of a human all of a sudden, mine wouldn't be white anymore, is the point.

I remember you saying you could burst us all out if you had the power to do so...

Would... would the chance to get out and save-

[Sigrun]

-those of us that are left... would that be enough for you to be able to hurt someone?

I wouldn't have waited this long to do it, if that were the case.

I would have tried to save all of you at my first given opportunity, if I thought I could, and the reason why is another reason I couldn't have killed Aqua - I love humans. If I were to try to actually kill anyone here, I wouldn't have killed her.

...The only other option here who isn't human is me, you know.

[That actually gets a bit of a wry smile.]

You don't have a wide selection.

I'd be lying if I said I hadn't considered!

[...jesus, mettaton- ]

But that was a long time ago, before I liked you. You were my most likely choice at the start, but I couldn't do that to you now.

...Thank you.

[And that's genuine.]

I'm sorry for all this. I really am.

You shouldn't be.

I know. But I am.

...Mettaton, your soul may be weaker than hers, but normally, a human's soul doesn't come into play when they're fighting. You can usually draw a human's soul out for a fight, but you can't do that here.

Your soul might be weaker than her soul, but is it weaker than her body?

Yes.

[And that's said with utmost confidence.]

It's the human body that makes them so much stronger than me, actually - our souls make up everything we are, whereas humans aren't as attuned to their own. They can influence us, not the other way around.

...That's true for most monsters, but is that really true for you? If you were just your soul, you wouldn't have been able to switch bodies.

There's metal in there. Not just a soul.

He told me before - the fact that his body is different from everyone else at where he comes from.

[Sigrun's pointedly looking at the empty podiums. They're hitting around where her doubts are.]

[Like Yato before her, Yosuke notices that look and gives her a look in return.

What you doing, Leader?]

(no subject)

captainobnoxious - 2016-04-09 20:45 (UTC) - Expand

garudynamic - 2016-04-09 20:47 (UTC) - Expand

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garudynamic - 2016-04-09 20:54 (UTC) - Expand

That's...true, yes, but that doesn't mean I killed someone.

I'm not saying you did, but the possibility that you could is there.

[Which means that what he said earlier about being unable to hurt Aqua? Seems to be a lie.]

The...w-well, the process is complicated, Alphys could probably explain it a lot better than I could...

I'm not wrong, am I.

ratingspoint - 2016-04-09 20:45 (UTC) - Expand

cherryblooded - 2016-04-09 20:46 (UTC) - Expand

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[nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn]

Does that still count for you in your metal body though?

Actually, how far out does that reach anyways? I mean, like, if you say, set up a bomb or something and she blew up would that still be affected by your limits?

[...no there's no reason to think this is anything like that, he's just actually legit curious]

[...Huh.]

Oooh, that is...an impressively morbid question, I love it.

[BUDDY- ]

Bombs are fair game. It's really just an issue in close combat.

So say if you just CAUSED her death but didn't actually lay hands on her, it could work?

...Technically, but I'd say a crushed-in skull is pretty hands-on.

Yeah, but it's something to keep in mind.

[He wants to know all the details so he can apply them to anything the others find out, after all]