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

[amygdalae]

What did you end up doing with her?

[ratingspoint]

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.

[garudynamic]

...

You didn't like, fall on her or something, did you?

[ratingspoint]

[CHILD]

Oh my god, no.

[garudynamic]

[Well thank god for that]

[ratingspoint]

[RIGHT...]

[garudynamic]

ANYWAYS. So you didn't fight her, but SOMETHING happened to her?

[ratingspoint]

It certainly seems that way from here, doesn't it? Now can we get back to the rest of the trial and working out exactly who happened to her and why, given that it wasn't me? This has been a really nice intermission, but...

[garudynamic]

Well alright then if it WASN'T you then you can tell us everything that happened between you two. It might give us a clue about who DID attack her.

[penduli]

That wouldn't be exciting for the audience. [ ...this is a show, Yosuke, Mettaton's made that really clear. ] There's no tension if he just tells us.

[ Sort of like Yato, if he thinks about it. ]

[garudynamic]

Even if it'll give us something that'll prove him innocent? Actors I swear to god.

[ratingspoint]

If that's what you'd like, darling!

Aqua came into the music room late last night. I didn't ask why she was there, the point is that she was. I've been teaching her how to sing, and sometimes we'd spend time together at night, so I guess she couldn't sleep or something. She noticed the toolkit and asked what I was doing with it - I think her first question was if I was trying to tune the piano? Anyway, I told her that I've been having some difficulties, and she asked me if I needed help with them, because they're probably pretty hard to do on myself.

So I let her fiddle with things for a while. Afterwards, she talked to me for a bit and convinced me that it was probably a good idea for me to write to my cousin, because I told her I'd been missing them lately. I agreed to it, thanked her for it, and left.

That's pretty much it. I spent the rest of the night writing letters, getting ink on me, and then apparently accidentally implicating myself in a murder.

[amygdalae]

[...okay, repairs make sense, but.]

Why did you ask for Aqua's help, specifically? It seems like an odd choice of a person to ask.

[ratingspoint]

Because she was there.

[He shrugs at that.]

I guess she couldn't sleep? I didn't ask her why she was there, that was just where we ended up meeting. I was teaching her to sing, so maybe she heard me in there and decided to come in. We both found that pretty calming, and she seemed to like it enough.

[isafraid]

She was already there? In the music room?

[...]

Was she already wearing that dress?

[ratingspoint]

No, she wasn't. She was wearing what she always does.

[isafraid]

Then that doesn't make sense! What could drive her to wear that dress at night and end up dying in it?

[ratingspoint]

Well, the going theory is that whomever killed her changed her out of her normal outfit, which she...apparently died in, and put her in that dress.

[...]

...After she died, sweetheart, that's why people were kind of horrified earlier.

[garudynamic]

Well we're pretty sure she was dressed up afterwards since there's not very much blood on it.

[amygdalae]

[...]

What made you even suddenly decide to try repairs there in the first place? She was there, sure, but something must have happened that required you to suddenly ask for her assistance.

[ratingspoint]

Well, she came in while I was already in there. I was playing for a while, but again, my ankle hasn't been doing too well. So I had the toolkit in there in case it decided to seize up.

[amygdalae]

Would that kind of fix even work in the first place? As you've said before, your make up isn't exactly that of a normal robot. You're powered by your soul, after all, and you confirmed to me that the properties of your body is different because of the fact that you're bonded.

[goodforsomething]

I did see him doin' that earlier. I doubt he was pretending on the off-chance of this.

[ratingspoint]

It would be a temporary patch until I either had my magic restored and could fix it myself, or until I could get to someone like Alphys who could help me with it.

...You're really just proving my point, though. You know that, right? If that sort of fix wouldn't work, I couldn't have possibly fought her the way you're all insisting I did.

[pokexplorer]

[Colress is just kind of looking over in a moment of "if only I'd known about that, I could have easily assisted."

But obviously it's not relevant in the middle of a trial so he's not saying anything...]