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

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.]