Take Responsibility.

[kingmakereffect]

The allotted time for investigating comes to an end, and those elevator doors slide open at the end of the first-floor corridor; it's a bit of a walk down from the fifth floor, but at least the ride down is swift and smooth. To say nothing of spacious. Your numbers are running low. The podium circle, as always, stands out against the black-walled courtroom where it's encircling that pit in the center; Mettaton and Shirazu have joined the ranks of the deceased, photographs in greyscale watching the proceedings from their podiums draped in black. The Kingmaker, too, is watching all of you; as always, it isn't until everyone has settled at their podium that he speaks, his voice sounding out through the room for all to hear. "Sacrificial has been taken from you. Maybe this time the guilty party is going to actually succeed at Rule Seven - but of course, whether they manage it is still up to the rest of you." Eleven Survivors remain. How many are still standing by the end of the day is up to you.

Comments

[captainobnoxious]

[It isn't easy to keep her eyes off the space where Mettaton would've lounged, but she's had a week to steel herself for and she manages. She's also about four inches taller with the most bitchin' stiletto heels this side of the vault.

(She's never regretted anything more in her entire life.)]

Riiiight, so, where do we begin. Because Stan and I can say with total certainty that whatever went down started in the arcade. And whoever did it had the mind to clean up, too, 'cause it smelled like vinegar and apparently you can use that to clean bloodstains.

[You learn something new every time someone dies.

... There's also the strange, metal electronic device that has seen better days, but you know. If she's learned anything it's that putting too much forward only convolutes things.]

[notjustawriter]

...Vinegar? That's kind of a strange thing to try to clean up blood with. Guess it was all the murderer was able to find.

[captainobnoxious]

I'd agree, but I don't know how many of us carry it on hand for one and two, there's cleaning supplies on the way up. Why not just take one of those? It wouldn't have made much difference though, both stink.

paging mods

[cherryblooded]

[She may not be bringing it up, but Cherryblod is literally right next to her, and he's got (damp) largish pieces of an electronic thing that he doesn't recognize, so don't mind if he swipes the electronic from her podium to compare to his pieces.

Do they look like they're from the same thing?]

[trustharder]

[Yes!]

[sleepingkogoro]

If the victim died in the Arcade then it is doubtful Shirazu-kun was killed with the bomb. Speedwagon-san and I found pieces of a machine of sorts - I think it is a machine - which seems to be the cause of the haze and the explosion, and that can only have happened in the sauna.

Any ideas what the real cause of death could be, anyone?

[notjustawriter]

I have an idea. I found this in the chapel, taped up under one of the pews.

[It's a bloody knife. The blood on the blade is dried, but it sure looks like it could be the murder weapon.]

[penduli]

Cleaning up might explain the towels missing from the first floor storage room.

[ Black... also has about four more inches of height today.

Because he's also wearing bitchin' stiletto heels LOOK, SIGRUN ASKED HIM TO, HE CAN'T SAY NO TO HER.

Um, but that aside— ]

I don't suppose anyone found those?

[amygdalae]

[All of you people already discussing stuff. BRUCE WILL PAUSE TO GIVE HIS BODY REPORT.]

The cause of death here, for now, seems to have been the bomb itself - there are defensive wounds on his arms, most of the being bruises. There is also another bruise at the back of his head - in both of these cases, they were both incurred before death and none of the bruises are dark enough to show that they could incur major blunt force trauma.

[tl;dr Shizaru didn't die by being hit in the head. Unlike Aqua. (RIP Aqua).]

As mentioned earlier there is a stab wound on his right shoulder, although the wound itself is non-fatal; and caught in his teeth I found this piece of fabric. [Bruce takes out from his pocket a piece of grey fabric and shows it to everyone. It's not a very large scrap and looks like it was torn off something.

Once everyone has seen it Bruce puts that down and then brings out what seems like a small mess of somewhat bloodied bandages that Bruce undoes enough so that he can hold up a slightly curved shard of glass.]

...I retrieved this from the wound on his abdomen. [You're welcome, everyone.] The curvature suggests that this was a container of sorts at some point - most likely what had been holding the contents of what caused the explosion itself.

[garudynamic]

He had fabric in his teeth? Could he have bit his attacker? I mean, guy had some crazy teeth.

SELECTION.

[kingmakereffect]

It's time to vote. Select the person you believe is responsible for Sacrificial's death. As always, majority rules.

Someone needs to be held accountable for their actions.

Re: SELECTION.

[sleepingkogoro]

ADEPT

[Well there you go, Aiden. Mouri has to admit the bomb was a nasty surprise, but he isn't really holding any hard feelings towards you.

Except for the whole murder thing, but that was to be expected from Mouri]

[amygdalae]

[With all of that done Bruce actually returns to his podium and enters his vote.]

> ADEPT

...I'll miss having people nearby my room.

[He's going to be a lone island after this.]

[cherryblooded]

ADEPT

[goodforsomething]

> Adept

[Well. At least this one wasn't such a slog. Stan is tired of this.]

[captainobnoxious]

[... So many people do things for the people they love, and it's not an unusual thing by far. Almost every case has been like that.

She regretted punching in Misa's name. Couldn't do Mettaton's. But this week has been a lesson in leadership and hell if she'll let feelings get in the way of her responsibility.

Even if the Kingmaker is right.]

ADEPT

[notjustawriter]

>ADEPT

[No hesitation at all this time.]

[isafraid]

[Never gets easier, does it? Not for Speedwagon at least.

The bomb was a nasty surprise. And it turns out the ladle was important after all.]

> ADEPT

[Just another case of someone doing something in the name of love. It's a damn shame.]

[penduli]

ADEPT

[pokexplorer]

ADEPT

ACCOUNTABILITY.

[kingmakereffect]

[And when the votes come in, the lights go out, the room going dark with the exception of the ambient blue glow from the touchpads; when the pit in the center illuminates itself, it's obvious that Aiden is gone from the circle. As always, there are no sounds of a fight, no indication that there was some sort of struggle; he was there, and then he wasn't, and after a moment the door opens beneath Podium 16.

Aiden doesn't emerge right away.

It's not obvious why; the fact simply remains that he isn't there as quickly as he should have been. It hardly seems to matter to his executioner, however; when the door beneath Podium 17 opens up and Shirazu steps out he's grinning, the expression strange and manic and involving entirely too many teeth, and he makes his way toward the center of the pit before his back simply seems to split open.

The structure that reveals itself then rips out of him hard; it's blood red, pointed and wicked-looking, a mass of muscle and skin and other organic material that quite simply shouldn't be coming out of someone who's been - with the exception of the teeth - entirely human-seeming up until now. The kagune is massive, tearing itself out of his shoulderblade like a claw, an extension of himself rather than anything with a mind of its own, and as he lunges forward toward the door under Podium 16 he's suddenly and immediately deterred by what look like bright, brief flashes of light, shooting forth from the darkness and looking vaguely like a strobe.

The walls of the pit change color to a dark, foreboding grey rather than the usual crisp white. And when Shirazu backs off and Aiden darts out, it'll become obvious that it wasn't any sort of light-producing device causing those brief bursts - rather, they were muzzle flashes.

Looks like Aiden managed something no one else has just yet - an external weapon. Somehow, he's found his guns.

Shirazu staggers back a bit, arms up as though to shield his face; he isn't bleeding, though, and it looks like his healing factor is trying to kick in, judging by the way the bullet holes Aiden shot directly into his head are closing up. Aiden's found a place to press up against the wall, the darker paneling making his movements harder to track, though they flicker once in a while as though they're trying to revert to the standard white; when Shirazu faces him again he fires - some of the bullets hit their mark, some of them don't, and the ones that don't seem to dissipate rather than burying themselves in the wall.

It's enough to slow Shirazu down, but not to kill him; he shakes his head a bit as though to clear it, and once he's done that it's as though nothing even happened, as though the bullets might as well have not met their mark at all.]

Goodnight, Adept!

[The Kingmaker's words are surprisingly harsh, almost manic-sounding; that structure at Shirazu's back twists a bit, it pulsates and arcs forward around itself and then it fires, those barbed areas that looked so much like claws instead forming a steady stream of massive projectiles aimed directly at Aiden.

They don't stab into him; they flat-out detonate on impact.

The result is immediate, blood and smoke and what's left of Aiden's body hitting the far wall of the pit; Shirazu drops to his knees once it's done, his kagune retracting and the skin at his back sealing up again, and while he isn't breathing hard he's still staring steadily at the place Aiden had been until the pit goes dark and the lights come back on over the rest of the courtroom.]

[goodforsomething]

[Stan knows immediately how the fight will end. Who doesn't? But as guns start blazing, he laughs, harsh and not quite joyful.]

Way to go, Aiden! [He whistles, piercingly enough that he hopes he can hear.

And then it's over. But he should be proud. He went down swinging. Stan's smiling as he turns away, bitter but proud.]

[amygdalae]

[That was--

what?

It almost feels surreal, watching it - from the sudden change in the pit to the thing that appears on Shizaru's body to Aiden fighting for his life down there. Where did the guns even come from? And what was with the Kingmaker all of a sudden?

The explosion takes him by surprise too, and Bruce grips at the sides of his podium as he waits for it to pass, eyes wide as he stares at the mess below, trying to process what the fuck just happened.

Eventually he jostles himself back to the present, once the lights come back on. Bruce is breathing hard but he tries to ignore that, although he still feels a little shaky as he goes to take Shizaru and Mettaton's portraits from their respective places. Once he has those then does he go back up, still not sure what to think.

Only ten of them left.

It's a very small number.]

[captainobnoxious]

[That entire thing was-- a thing, actually, from Shirazu's apparent everything to Aiden fighting back tooth and nail.

But the Kingmaker's voice makes it, really, and she takes a moment to steady her misfortune of lucky stilettos. Time to... attempt to walk back without falling, yes, good plan.

There's such a light in her eyes though. She wants to fight it, too. But not at the expense of everyone else.]

[isafraid]

[The battle will end the same way it always has, but that doesn't make it any less surprising.

Aiden's guns, Shriazu's... powers, and the Kingmaker seeming more cross then he ever has been. The end result is still shockingly painful, but there's a sense of pride in Aiden as he put up a struggle.

That's likely the most they could have asked for.]

...Masterfully done. [And with that, Speedwagon turns to leave.]