fifth trial

[facultwist]

"Good job. Let's get you down to the trial room, shall we?"

It's your fifth time walking there. Look how few of you there are now. By the end of things today, you might end up with a third of your original count remaining. It cannot be hard to think about what the plan becomes after today. How much further can your numbers dwindle? How long before you run against a murder that you haven't the resources left to solve?

All there is to do today is hope you have the resources to solve this one. Someone among you still killed, presumably.

At least there's one more small comfort than you might be used to - Isabella has stretched her order to be nice to you all as much as she can, it seems, and brought coffee cake. A little messy, but good for you.

You take your places at the circle, and it's time to get down to it.

"Back down to one culprit max. Let's go, sports fans."

Comments

[curdle]

[ There are so few of them left now. Thomasin is not Kohaku; she cannot carry a heavily-laden tray with her grace, and doesn't have time to go to the cafeteria anyway. She does, however, manage to bring a backpack full of water bottles and some light snacks (it's like, granola bars, a bag of almonds, and some dried fruit) and set it on her desk—making it clear what it is and that everyone's welcome to take some—before going to Anthy's desk to present her actual evidence. (It's a glass, a cutting board, and am empty bottle of meds!) ]

A knife was missing from the block. It was not all I saw amiss in the kitchen, but it seemed the most important to say first.

I found this glass in the kitchen sink. It was washed, but a smudge of purple remained—and white flecks I could not identify. You may all look upon it if you wish. The blender was washed, too, but that was done less thoroughly. There were bits of strawberries and some blackberry seeds yet in it, which match to the ingredients missing from the fridge: strawberries, blackberries, and milk. But there were no white flecks in the blender, only the glass, so I must guess that the substance [ 2024, dir. Coralie Fargeat ] was added later.

... I have other reason to think so. There was chalky white powder on this cutting board and a washed-off meat mallet in the drawer. And when I searched the trash, I found a bottle of medication with its label torn off. Nothing was left but a bit of the warning on its sedative effects.

[hootheart]

Powder match?

[Tiera taps the knife she placed on Kohaku's desk, gesturing at the bits of white powder stuck to the handle.]

[rednails]

[Mariko turns to address Hawke, with some obvious reservation. But still--]

Can we account for the knife?

[Before, they were scrambling to find it on each others' persons. If it's buried in the victim, well-- one less thing to worry about, maybe.]

[iseedollpeople]

[Fine day we're having in this slice of pie surrounded by death, Thomasin!

Mei will give the snacks a brief look and then take a water bottle. Time will tell if she'll nibble on anything, or just sit here in still life with the food for moral support.]

Several bottles of medication reduced to powder with knives and taken. I don't know how long it takes for sedatives, especially with a berry drink in the mix.

[tomestones]

[Once more. How many more times are we going to end up down here? How many more people will die? Dagr tries to put those questions out of their mind and focus on what they found.]

I took a look around the nurse's office. There was a black sharpie on the floor in the middle of the room. Kinda weird that it was left there, but nothing noteworthy about it otherwise.

[They brought it with them in case you want to examine it!]

Several bottles of painkillers were taken as well. Here's the really weird part: I found labels from the missing bottles of painkillers in the trash.

[They've got those too in case anyone wants to have a look at them!]

[curdle]

Oh—one of those must match up to the bottle I found!

[rednails]

[No one's talking about any message or labeling near as she can tell, so Mariko pipes up.]

Nothing was written on, was there? I don't see a note lying around.

[rednails]

[If you saw Mariko have a fit in the hall earlier-- no you didn't! There's a low-simmering irritation beneath her words, but what else is new? Well, perhaps that she's making half an effort today to keep herself level. That's new.]

I looked around the lounge and found some medical textbooks on the table. They had granola crumbs all over them. [She makes a face at this as she talks.] Someone left an entire bag of it lying around. Talk about mess.

[She places two scraps of fabric at the front of her desk as well, one a heavy red fabric and the other a pink satin.]

This was in the fireplace, too.

[curdle]

That... sounds like Satsuki, does it not? Both the textbooks and the granola.

[shellhawked]

There were bits of granola stuck in her teeth. Even without the textbooks she was definitely in there. The fabric...I don't know what that's about though.

[goldendoll]

... Should we assume she was alone in the lounge, or not?

[ she's not confident in her instincts about these things at this point. ]

[goldendoll]

[ hatsune draws her coat more tightly around herself as she she enters the trial room, lace mask tied in place. even if the girl beneath has been seen, wearing doloris's mask still feels like a comfort as this cycle continues grinding further along. being able to at least pretend at not being a person dulls the ache.

hatsune settles in at her own seat without a word, before removing the two baggies of evidence from her coat pockets, holding them up. ]

... The trash cans behind the cafeteria had another empty medication bottle. Most of the label's gone, but you can see it's a prescription... no names or anything, though. There was a pair of bloody rubber gloves, too. Small or medium, I think, probably from the cafeteria.

[curdle]

[ from over by Dagr's desk: ]

You too?

[hootheart]

[Tiera moves to stand by Hawke's side, in what was Kohaku's former seat. She takes out a towel, unwrapping it to reveal a still-bloody knife.]

Evidence Report:

A knife was found in the bushes near the outdoor cafeteria, by the trash cans to be more specific. It was still bloody, and had some chalky white powder on the handle. It appears to have been taken from the kitchen.

nausea cw

[rednails]

[Fighting the wave of nausea that passes over her at the sight of the bloodied knife.]

So that answers that.

[shellhawked]

[You know those days where you're like "this might as well happen"? It sums up Hawke's morning as she wanders into the courtroom, wearing her slept-in clothes from yesterday smeared in Satsuki's blood, and sees her untouched desk in a sea of black fabric and photos. She stops to follow the curve of the dead with her eyes before continuing on to sit on top of her desk per usual.

She does, however, pick up a slice of coffee cake on the way and force herself to take a small bite.]

A-4 was locked from the inside, with a chair under the doorknob. The chair had a smudge of blood on it. [Hawke looks in the dead center of the middle of the floor while she talks, her voice flat.] The whole room was trashed when I broke down the door. Things were knocked over, another chair had a broken leg, both of the desks had been flipped over. There was some blood splatter in a few places.

I could hear the shower running before I got in the room and when I got in so was the sink. No blood though, not that I could see.

[Easy part over. She closes her eyes before she continues.]

Satsuki had been slashed across her stomach, straight across. She was hugging a pillow when I found her, maybe to...to try and stop the bleeding. It was soaked but it didn't seem like enough for her to have bled out. There were a lot of bruises and small lacerations on her hands and her legs too. Her palms had blood on them too but it didn't seem like it was related to her other cuts.

[Something else, there was something else...she squeezes her eyes shut tighter to try and remember.] Ink. There was black ink on her fingers. And there was a little granola stuck in her teeth and purple stains.

[Another meager nibble of coffee cake, more to give herself a momentary break than out of hunger.]

...the blood on Satsuki and on her pillow was fresh. Really fresh. I don't...I don't think she'd been dead for long when I found her.

[If she'd woken up sooner. If Satsuki had kept her promise and woken her up at all...]

[rednails]

Well there's where the Sharpie fits.

[Mariko presses her lips together.]

There wasn't a note or anything near her?

[goldendoll]

So how was the room blocked off, then...

[ her brain cells are working overtime here hawke ]

[hootheart]

Purple teeth, probably berry mix? [She gestures in Thomasin's direction to indicate what she's talking about.]

hand check!

[tomestones]

Okay, I'm gonna check everyone to see if your hands look like they'll fit these gloves that were found. So hold 'em out for me, alright?

[They're also specifically looking for any damage or broken nails or anything that might indicate someone was involved in a fight, but hand size is the important thing here!]

[kickdownthatwall]

[Alena holds out her hands! ...she tries to take care of her nails but she's, like, rough and tumble so they have a standard state of "kind of scuffed"]

[rednails]

[Mariko holds out her hands for Dagr to check. All of her nails are painted red now, not just the thumb nails.

There's also a ring of yellowed bruising around her wrist, just beneath the edge of her shirt sleeve.]

[shellhawked]

[Hawke's hands are mostly clean (she had to wash them before feeding Varric and Chu-chu) even if from the wrists up she's filthy with dried blood. Her nails are also somewhat recently painted and the polish is only a little chipped.]

VOTING

[facultwist]

If you think you have your girl, please place a vote. Isabella will... okay, since she wants to go take forever in the bathroom or whatever, we'll just read the votes. Majority rules, one culprit, et cetera.

[goldendoll]

[ and automatically, she writes:

Hatsune Misumi, the Enshrouded ]

EXECUTION - acta est fabula

[facultwist]

[ Ahead of any protests, a massive clatter resounds through the chamber as the candles all go out - and by “go out”, of course, we mean fly across the room and slam into the walls. Even the activation of the projector is jerkier than usual, marked by the irregular pulls and thumps of manual activation.

Hatsune is not in the image, at first. The video shows the stage of the theater, with the curtains shut. They open, revealing a guillotine, center stage. It looks to be… actually, anyone from the theater department will recognize it as a prop from last year’s production of The Scarlet Pimpernel, but the blade has been replaced with something real, which… the safety mechanism probably won’t be able to stop.

The camera swings around in jerky motions to Hatsune, standing in the center aisle. At the different entrances to the theater, moving a few inches at a time, are four mannequins wearing ornate dresses - much like Vanity’s execution, they’re made of parts and models from around the theater department, though these seem more roughshod in order to ensure that they have fully composed and dressed bodies, patterned very similarly to a certain style of clothing that Hatsune is fond of. ]

L, you can stop this, come on!

Put an end to me, then! Use all that power you possess without me!

[ The sign comes into view then - LIVE TWO MINUTES. The standard instructions.

Hatsune tries.

The mannequins aren’t bound by things like walking around the chairs, clambering and skittering rapidly in direct lines towards the condemned. But there’s no avoiding them, not really. Not for long enough.

It’s a mercifully fast process, the dragging and positioning. The mannequins are almost gentle at times, mercilessly cruel at others. The end result is the same. ]

Come on, there’s no point to—

I am not defined by the rules of your game.

It’s— It’s not my fucking game, you know that!

[ The blade of the guillotine shines in the stage lights. The mannequins surround Hatsune now, dancing in some kind of… well, dancing is a strong word. It’s like a child’s imitation of a doll’s dance, shaking limbs and unnatural angles.

The blade of the guillotine starts to drop. The curtains begin to swing.

You’re spared the sight of the kill. But something falls to the ground and rolls to bump against the curtain.

Hatsune Misumi is dead.

The Headmistress’s voice is surprisingly small. ]

That’s it. It’s over. We’re done. I’m going to finish up and you’re all free to-

No.

It’s over, L. I control the loop, and we’re ending it, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

I control the storm.

[ The room starts to shake. ]

I control the game.

Wha- Isabella, if you really are a good guy this time, get them back to Rosenblum Hall now!

[ That’s your cue to leave! ]

[kickdownthatwall]

[....now she feels actually guilty but more importantly uhhh]

...Satsuki are you game to be running actually. This seems like bad time. I can surely carry you.