theairlock | seventh trial

[You get a little time after your investigation is over, but not too long. PAL gets bored easily and doesn't like to be kept waiting, after all.

When everyone has gathered at the elevators with their evidence, the one going down turns on automatically. It...it looks like you're taking a leap of faith into an elevator shaft, not gonna lie. But the first person to step in finds that it's a carefully-balanced anti-gravity field made to just shoot you down and deposit you gently at the end of a long hallway. Like a walk-through aquarium, the walls and ceiling are all made of thick glass, giving you an even better view of the stars outside.

You're led to a wide-open area, empty except for a circle of podiums in its center. Heart and Noctis have joined the ranks of their grey-faced photo friends. The walls here are equally transparent, and they seem to have lines of large hatches going along them, as if this is where one might park one's small short-journey craft when getting ready to go on vacation to a galaxy far far away. Shame you don't know anything about those.

You already know what you're here to do. You'd best be getting along with it.]

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[Jane just. Stares. Mouth fallen open. She was quiet during the discussion of Church's possible framing, she didn't know what to think, but

But Nari is]

...No. No, I...no...

Jane-chan...

I'm not...I swore I wouldn't do this shit anymore, I...fucking hell, Nari...! I don't - I don't want to do this to anyone I love anymore!

I know, Jane, but I am well aware of what faces me. But I don't expect anyone to fight for me.

...Why?

Because this was all planned. Since the motive. I'm a killer, and I know I've hurt everyone here. So why fight for me? I'm not a good person.

Because in the end, you are our friend.

[Xander has his coat back on, and has one hand in his pocket, fingering something]

Yes, but in what world for friends kill fri-.... actually, no, don't answer that. We've all lived that answer...

[What are you doing Xander, gonna pull a weapon?]

...

[And despite the answer, Jane...laughs. She doesn't smile - she's too tired, too hurt - but her laugh is sincere, a "hoo hoo hoo" she hasn't properly been able to pull off for a long time.]

So you're a killer. So you've hurt us. So what? That doesn't change the fact that you're my friend.

[Jane looks at Nari and comes close. There's tears budding in her eyes, and she looks up at the redhead without fear or loathing. Just...pity.]

You're so smart, Nari, but you're pretty dumb with people, you know that?

[Jane... Nari reaches over and ruffles her hair.]

I know. I act rashly, without thinking ahead... kind of like that Tarot reading Ardyn gave me.

[Jane almost wonders, in that moment, if her reading ever came true. She can't even remember what it was about anymore, and that just. That really makes the tears come.]

Dammit...! God damn it!

I'm sorry, Jane. Just keep an eye on Xander, okay?

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[Whatever he's doing, doesn't look like he's ready to make a move just yet]

We've all things that are cruel. I more then some- Bolton was my friend, too. But while your choices are your own, as I've said...

I feel, in the end, we are no more then swords in the hands of a greater evil. You don't deserve to die anymore then the others did. Intent or not. I can not expect forgiveness and refuse to offer it in kind.

...... you're too good to me, Xander.

[Friend killers stick together it seems.]

...Nari-san. Even if you were thinking of yourself, you've saved what could be billions of people. Even if you're prickly and don't trust easily, you have a kind heart and people who love you. Even if P.A.L. orders us to vote, what will he do next week? And the next?

None of us wants to stay in this. Traitor or not, you don't deserve to die!

Yeah, well, I think there's a few people in here that would disagree with you on that last part right now.

Maybe you're right. But don't you think the point is that every single one of us has been forced to betray our friends for months on end twice?

... I never intended to betray anyone until this motive. I wanted to escape with everyone here. I wanted to escape together with Pyrrha, like I promised.

I know. And everyone else who's killed in here, even the ones who intentionally planned for someone to die, most of them were still good people.

I've never thought of myself as a good person. Just someone who existed.

HEY YURIKA ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?

[It is at this moment that Yurika realizes that she's still Church and shuts her hardlight off.]

I know what she did was horrible and selfish and ten kinds of cruel and she's spent this whole time saying it's her way or the highway. She's paranoid. She framed you. She betrayed every one of us. But do you think anybody deserves this place? We have to get out of here, but the way this is set up, we keep having to thin our own numbers instead.

I'm not saying she deserves to die, I just think it's really shitty to frame what she did as something that saved a lot of people like she's a hero for doing this!

...I know.

[She takes a deep breath.]

Even if it's true, I shouldn't go to that. Especially since it wasn't even the reason she had.

[Even Choromatsu knew he'd be saving other people's loved ones too.]