trusthell | Take Responsibility.

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

[OH FUCKING GOOD, someone who gets the point.]

Short essay. I'll allow verbal submissions for now, though!

I'd like to hear what you think actually happened, because as far as I can tell no one has a damn clue outside of "We'll figure that out later."

If you're going to accuse me, I'd like to hear what I'm being accused of. In exact terms.

[Can we answer 'legs'?]

[...well i mean if you're accusing him of having some great ones he's guilty as charged]

[He can't really deny that I suppose, hot damn]

[... She's gonna lean against him a little. Very quietly:]

Did you ask the Kingmaker if you could save someone else's world? I was thinking about it myself.

[It's not an essay, but it's a question that she wants answered. It might be sealing something for her.]

[He's quiet for a moment at that.]

...It's like I said, sweetheart.

The incentive didn't do anything for me.

[...]

Not for you. But I can think of a number of other people you'd do it for... on the guarantee they'd be safe, too. If the Kingmaker could promise you that, just if, then I don't see why you wouldn't.

Aqua had a lot of things back home she had to protect herself. You don't have anything back home.

It's a nice thought! It really is. But I didn't have any conversations with the Kingmaker about making an exception.

You can't prove that you didn't, since your phone's apparently fried...

[...]

I wonder if he'd tell us.

[Though... she's not exactly jumping at the chance to.]

...You don't want to have it confirmed if I really didn't, do you.

I'm a little afraid of what his answer might be.

[She's still holding onto the hope that it's not him, after all.]

Sigrun...

[LET'S TRY AND PIECE THIS TOGETHER...? ~~I should not be doing this at 5AM, save me.~~]

You and Aqua were in the music room for some reason, and there a fight broke out between the both of you for some reason. You struck her left at some point so that she couldn't defend herself anymore. She tried to run after that, toppling and generally using the music instruments in the room in order to hinder you, but you caught up to her and stopped her from running by hurting her legs too - that's why there were bruises there. After that you ended her life; most likely with the wrench that Captain Eide found in the restroom.

Once she was down, you then went around using Aqua's blood to fabricate the other evidence - you're the only one among us that doesn't bleed, which is why there are so many items that have blood on them. It wasn't to hide the murder weapon, it was to throw off any suspicion on you. Once that was done then you wiped up the remaining blood with Aqua's clothes and changed her into the attire that we found.

Obviously, doing all of this would have stained you quite thoroughly with blood, which is where the peroxide comes into play - you used a liberal amount of it in order to get rid of it from you, and since you are made of metal physically, it wouldn't leave any trace on you.

...is there anything I'm missing in terms of the order of events?

Edited 2016-04-09 21:06 (UTC)

...Well, we could try the part where you're wrong about a lot of it?

[Dude.]

I mean, it was a really good attempt, don't get me wrong! I'd actually give you half-credit for that one, and the crowd would love it. But that's...not. No.

Care to fill me on which parts I'm wrong about?

...Honey, if you're not expecting the answer of "I didn't do it in the first place so your whole premise is wrong," then I don't know what to tell you.

[METTATON, FOR FUCK'S SAKE.]

But let's say that I'll allow the part where we met in the music room last night. Everyone knows I spend time in there playing piano from time to time, because I don't sleep and I get bored. So fine. She came upstairs and met me.

What we ended up doing is the reason why I couldn't have pursued her, though.

What did you end up doing with her?

Think about it for a moment - that toolkit was up there, wasn't it? Stan's seen me with them before; she was helping me with repairs. My ankle's been messed up for almost a full week now, I've been trying to specifically avoid impact injuries - and since neither of us really knew what we were doing, whatever she ended up repairing was just a temporary patch. Pursuing her, fighting her, all of that would have been a huge mistake and just made everything worse on that end, and I probably wouldn't be standing now.