fifth trial

[airlockedmods]

[With the announcement and evidence gathered, the doors in the pool area are the next destination for anyone who doesn't want a repeat of witnessing PAL's brand of punishment.

The podium circle is more empty than it's ever been, with Rhys and Nishitani's portraits floating at attention where they had stood just two weeks before. In the place Kip used to stand there is still no floating portrait frame, no memorial, no indication he ever set foot in this courtroom.]

Welcome, Champions, to the Rose Ceremony. Weed out the true culprit and they'll be eliminated, vote incorrectly and they'll be allowed to go home at the expense of the rest of your lives.

Oh, and don't bore me. You know by now I cannot stand being bored.

Comments

[motherfucking_ghost]

[Church finally, finally shows up, Queenie curled in his arms. They might still be a little bit damp but it's fine. He only puts her gently back on her feet when he's reached his podium. This is gonna be hard, but as always, he's forcing himself to be prepared to figure this out.]

I know this is about Nishitani, but he was supposed to be with Queenie last night, and something happened to her. [He hates to start out this way, because people are going to have to interrogate Queenie's perspective, but he can't let it go uncommented upon.] Nari found her in Kip's room mostly unresponsive, and it took a lot to make her awake and coherent enough to say anything, but she kept losing consciousness, but she's...fine now. Physically.

I don't know if someone slipped her something or tried to kill her too or...

[goteachother]

[She just nods, pressing herself close to Leonard's side, clutching the cat plush Junpei gave her to her chest. She's not done crying but she's at least going to try to keep herself together for this.

For all the questions that she's sure are going to come and she doesn't have answers to.]

I-I'm sorry... I don't know how much h-help I can be...

[scourgingstars]

There was a mostly-empty vial in the rest area--it looks like it could be from the infirmary, but it wasn't labeled or anything of the sort. Maybe that's something to do with it.

[daughterofthemark]

Could that result from the use of oxycodone or... [what was that other thing the thing Lee used on Finn] zolpidem?

[serrata]

[ Yuuri looks a little different at the trial today. Part of it is that she's still wearing Junpei's jacket, which is just a little too big for her. But it's the look on her face as well and the determined set of her shoulders.

One last time. This is the last time she's going to see the inside of this courtroom. She swears it to herself.

She holds up a plastic baggie from the kitchen and inside it is a bloodied fillet knife. ]

... I found this in the rest area just near the... n--near Nishitani-san. Going by the cut on his throat, this has to be what killed him. It's one of the fillet knives from the kitchen.

There also weren't any signs of a struggle that I could tell -- the room was the same as it always was. It doesn't look like he had much chance to put up a fight.

[daughterofthemark]

Is it possible that he was attacked in his sleep?

[everylittlesecret]

Fillet knife....? That.... that wouldn't be an easy knife to cut a throat with. [Sorry if she sounds quite.]

[scourgingstars]

[They just had to get this over with. Figure out what happened and deal with the fallout as it came. Just a little longer, he just had to hold himself together a little longer.]

[He glanced briefly over to Queenie, hesitating a second or two before talking to the group itself.]

The cause of death was a blade wound to the throat, but there were no defensive wounds on the body. It's possible he was already lying down when the wound was inflicted. His suit seemed to be in a bit of a disheveled state as well.

[misanthropicprinciple]

It's not just that it was disheveled. His shirt was misbuttoned. Either he got dressed in a hurry, he was very tired, or... someone else was.

[daughterofthemark]

[She's waiting... waiting... no? Arianna goes back and checks the wound diagram again, just to be sure.]

What about this X mark?

[desperateprayer]

...No defensive wounds... I...

[ She's thinking. ]

...Nishitani wouldn't have died without a fight unless it was someone he trusted.

[daughterofthemark]

[Arianna has been crying, to nobody's surprise at this point, but there are no tears now. She has evidence to present.]

I found these upturned roots in the garden. They appear to have belonged to flowers. There was also a mixing bowl.

[serrata]

Roots?

[ Of course that makes Champion Green Thumb's ears prick up. ]

So, someone was pulling up flowers again... we found some in Nishitani-san's hands... maybe that's where they came from?

[shikosuki]

A mixing bowl...?

...Weeks ago, when Takumi died, he left me a couple of things. One was... a map. And of the back on it he had listed poisonous plants that could be found in the garden. I don't know how legitimate it was but he was also brewing a some kind of drink in our room that I'm positive was poison, so I have to imagine that's where he was getting some of that.

I wonder if... someone tried the same?

[misanthropicprinciple]

[Junpei's got fire in him today. As if someone used Morale Boost on his plucky detective ass.]

I was the one who took point on the body investigation this time, so... direct your questions to me, I guess.

Ardyn's summed up most of it, but I want to clarify a couple things from the wound diagram. The cause of death was definitely the neck wound, but the X that was marked on his chest--that's all it is. A marking. It looks like it was written on him in sharpie, and there's no wound there.

We also found him with geraniums and marigolds in his hands.

[serrata]

... That's strange, isn't it? Why would they add the X to the wound diagram if... well, it's not actually a wound? Has anything like that ever been on there before?

[everylittlesecret]

[Nari looks worn down and tired, yawning softly as she pulls something out of the top of her dress. It's a set of notes. Very quietly she sets them on her podium, taking her own and putting it back where she pulled it out from. It takes another moment for her to speak, her voice rather monotone and soft.]

Nishitani Homare was prepared to die if this notes are any indication. Each of the living here has had one written for them. If you do not wish to read it, or even want it, I will destroy it when the trial is over. These are his last words, and yes, for the sake of the investigation, I have read each one for clues. Do with them what you will.

[Some of them may have stray teardrops on them.] His room was also very clean. As if no one really ever lived in it. It was strange for someone like him.

[misanthropicprinciple]

...

[Junpei takes the one addressed to him with some trepidation, worried about compromising himself during the trial. But it might shed some light on the investigation, so he steels himself and reads, and...]

Nishitani-san.

[It's a strangled, offended, pained chuckle, and Junpei swallows and shakes his head.]

Nari... thanks. If--if you need to check out any time, I got this. All right?

[motherfucking_ghost]

I'll take mine. [He might even be a little overeager to take his. ...And Queenie's while he's at it, so he can bring it back to her. He absolutely does not open his are you kidding he's not reading that shit right now.]

...And that doesn't sound like him at all. He keeps appearances, yeah, but nothing else...about that guy seemed clean. At all.

[serrata]

[ jesus christ Yuuri did not expect there to ever be a day where she would be made so sad by a yakuza's opinions on her sex life but god damn it here we are apparently thanks airlocked ]

Was he staying somewhere else, do you think? I, um... I haven't really used my room all that much since maybe... the third week here?

[ ~Scandalous~ ]

[daughterofthemark]

[Arianna turns bright red a few moments after she fetches the note meant for her. ...and Choromatsu and Ardyn, as it turns out, which sure isn't making this any better. She's just gonna Very Awkwardly take it back over to that side of the room.]

[desperateprayer]

[ Clarith will take hers and smile sadly for a moment before frowning. ]

Nari... Do they all talk like he's a dead man walking?

[goteachother]

[It takes a long moment for Queenie to stop crying long enough to even focus on the bottle in Ardyn's hands. She's so scared and hurt and she stares for a long long moment, then looks around at everyone else.]

It looks like... memories?

[She shakes her head, hard, sliding down Church's podium to curl up on the floor around her plushie, crying but shaking her head in denial.]

I-It can't be. I can't do that. I can't...

[She scrambles for her "wand" dragging it to her and sobbing as she snaps it in half like the useless twig it is.]

It's not real!! It can't be.

[daughterofthemark]

Dame... Queenie...?

VOTING TIME

[airlockedmods]

Now that you have the proof, it's time to cast your votes. You know the drill by now, Champions.

Re: VOTING TIME

[scourgingstars]

[Ardyn moved one more time from Clarith's position, standing by Queenie, Church, and the others with tension in every part of him like he was fully prepared to break out phantom swords he had no real access to.]

I don't care if she did it. I don't care who did, or how, or even why. I refuse to once again be the hand that helps drive a knife into someone we claim to care for.

It was Nishitani himself who said that we were something close to a family after all that we've been through. If we all believe in those words and yet are truly to execute Queenie, then every last one of us are the worst kind of traitors and should go right alongside her.

[He gripped Church's shoulder securely with his right hand; if Queenie went into that chamber, both of them would as well.]

[If, he thought, please let it still be an 'if'. Ardyn straightened up, his voice taking on shades of the falsely affable tone of the Chancellor once more; a career politician playing a high-stakes chess game ith everything at stake.]

But I must bring myself to wonder...'weed out the true culprit and they'll be eliminated, vote incorrectly and they'll be allowed to go home.'

PAL--not once have I ever heard you specify what happens if we simply all abstain entirely.

[If he was Lucifer, then welcome to the rebellion.]

EXECUTION: Care to Go for a Dip?

[airlockedmods]

[Ten minutes pass. At the end of that time period, the lights all simultaneously go dark, and each still-occupied podium lights up with a different color of rose. All except Clarith's and Queenie's, which both light up red.]

Processing...

[All roses go once more dark. The rose on the front of Nishitani's podium lights up, and then begins to move clockwise around the circle, more and more roses lighting up as the lights spin around the circle. Finally, when the lights stop moving, there are 9 roses lit with rich, red light - leaving the ten empty podiums, and Queenie's, dark.]

Congratulations. The Champion Pukwudgie has been found guilty. Now commencing execution.

[Like the weeks prior, there's a concentrated flash of white light and Queenie disappears right from Ardyn and Church's arms with nothing but a lingering heat that fades after a second.

The lights in the execution chamber come on, to reveal Queenie sitting in a chair suspended over what looks like a still, black pool of water. She panics and looks up, plaintively, through the glass for a moment, but then the water begins to shift, to shine. Soft voices come through, happy memories from the Fantasy Sweet, starting with one that she must miss so much...

Hello, honey.

Scenes from the parties that have been held, quiet scenes of brushing Takumi's hair in the mornings, freely giving happy kisses to Church, to Kip, to everyone who will stand still long enough for a smooch on the cheek. Lying with Nishitani, his rough voice reassuring her that it's going to be okay. Tears well in her eyes and there's a watery smile on her face as she holds back a sob-laugh. She knows what this is, knows what it's doing. The chair she's floating in begins to descend toward the water, as the voices change, begin to call out to her, Come on, they say. Stand by me.

She does. She's been ready since she killed Nishitani, even if she doesn't remember. Her grip tightens on the arms of the chair, and as if strings holding it to the ceiling are all cut at once she drops into the pool. She barely has time to scream, just a blur of blonde and pink below the surface of the water, bubbles rising and ruining the projection on the water as she cries out silently from beneath it. And then, there's just stillness.

The lights in the execution chamber go off, the lights in the courtroom come on, and the patio doors unlock with a 'click.'

You're free to go, Champions.]

[scourgingstars]

...

[Ardyn watched in complete silence, looking from the scene at hand to the empty space where Queenie had only just been.]

[It was supposed to work this was supposed to work what kind of savior couldn't even-]

[The hand on Church's shoulder tightened, shaking violently.]