blank state round five
day seventeen[After a certain point, late in the afternoon, the cat steps away from where he's been sitting, and meanders back towards the far side of the room, near the screens.]Setting
Timeline
CastVoting is unlocked. Voting will close on
April 26 at
9 PM EDT.
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Solve the Case
That's enough questions. Someone can try and solve the case. Tell me everything that happened. You can have two tries.
The better that you do, and the faster you do it, the better I can help you.
[You may now write up a summary of the case. You are encouraged to OOCly and ICly collaborate on this to make sure you get everything. The more complete the summary, the more hints you will receive.]
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Hecate and Lady Kindly were long time friends, and Hecate was invested in the occult. Her interest in it spread to Kindly, who started using her daughter Iphigenia as a test subject for all her new spells. Recently she came to Kindly with a spell for immortality. Kindly was very interested in it, but it was extremely dangerous and Hecate warned her against it. But it didn't matter to her--Iphigenia was sickly, and after her father's death at her birth, she was paranoid about losing her daughter as well... That's why she latched onto the idea of immortality.
It was during that meeting that Hecate found out that Kindly was using spells on her daughter, but despite that she kept bringing her new tomes because she didn't want to lose their friendship. But Damon also lived in the mansion. He'd been tutored by the bedridden Mrs. Laurel along with Iphigenia, and they'd become friends despite their differences. He knew about the spellcasting that Kindly was doing and tried to tell Laurel that Iphigenia was being hurt, but she didn't take him seriously and ignored his warnings. So the spells continued. Iphigenia's tutoring was stopped at one point too just so Kindly's spellcasting could take priority. They were dangerous, and they drove Iphigenia insane, leading her to eventually snap and kill her mother one night in her sleep.
When the murder happened, Damon overheard it and came onto the scene after it was already done. Seeing his only friend Iphigenia as the culprit, he decided to run away with her so she wouldn't have to suffer the consequences. But Laurel overheard what happened, and that's why she insisted to the police it hadn't been Damon. Since she had only heard the murder and not seen it, she couldn't be entirely sure and their interrogation made her lost her confidence in him, which lead to him becoming the murder suspect.
So for two years Damon and Iphigenia were on the run, and eventually Hunter and Canis, among a few others, were hired to try and find the two of them. Hunter found them first, and in order to escape and protect Iphigenia, Damon killed him. Canis came in just in time to witness the attack and then went after Damon, happily beating and strangling him to death despite both Iphigenia and Damon's protests. He never even stopped to listen to them before killing Damon. After that Iphigenia was taken back home...
Some time later, Laurel tried to get the truth out of Iphigenia, who had forgotten the whole ordeal. She insisted that she wasn't hiding anything, but then there was a part of her that knew she was guilty, and then the memories of what did happen came rushing back to her.
[To be continued?]
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Theories of Blame
I'll be taking theories of blame now. You need four different theories for four different people. This isn't just what happened, but it's why that person is to blame. You can have two tries per person to get it right, but I won't tell you whether you completely got it.
The closer you get to the true source of the blame, the more I'll be able to help you find out who that person is.
[You may write up a theory of blame for a character involved in the case. The theories should involve these characters and the fictional case given by the cat, rather than any of the characters who are actually present. Please only make one theory for one character at a time, and put that character's name in the heading of your comment. You are encouraged to OOCly and ICly collaborate.]
Mrs. Hecate
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Mrs. Laurel
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Mr. Canis
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Iphigenia
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Mrs. Hecate Attempt Two
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Iphigenia Attempt Two
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Cabinets
But if you would like to have a more specific look through anyone's cabinets, you can ask here.]
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[ She's not terribly polite about it this time, because gdi what do you have against her apathetic self, cat. But may as well get it over with. ]
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Canis
The best thing that we can do for Canis right now is discover where his blame lies, correct? The better the theory, the better our hint from the cat will be. Let's not argue about identities until then.
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He attacked and killed Damon without caring about the circumstances, to start.
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Case Summary
Hecate and Lady Kindly were long time friends, and Hecate was invested in the occult. Her interest in it spread to Kindly, who started using her daughter Iphigenia as a test subject for all her new spells. Iphigenia was sickly, and after her father's death at her birth, Lady Kindly was paranoid about losing her daughter as well... That's why she latched onto the idea of immortality. But the spells were dangerous, and they drove Iphigenia insane, leading her to kill her mother one night in her sleep.
But Damon also lived in the mansion. He'd been tutored by the bedridden Mrs. Laurel along with Iphigenia for some time, and they'd become friends despite their differences. So when he overheard the murder, he decided to run away with Iphigenia so she wouldn't have to suffer the consequences. But Laurel overheard what happened, and that's why she insisted to the police it hadn't been Damon. Since she had only heard the murder and not seen it, she couldn't be entirely sure and their interrogation made her lost her confidence in him, which lead to him becoming the murder suspect.
So for two years Damon and Iphengenia were on the run, and eventually Hunter and Canis, among a few others, were hired to try and find the two of them. Hunter found them first, and in order to escape and protect Iphengenia, Damon killed him. Canis came in just in time to witness the attack and then went after Damon, happily beating and strangling him to death. After that Iphengenia was taken back home.
...Is that everything?
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Update
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Mrs. Hecate's Blame
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Mrs. Laurel's Blame
Does anyone have anything to say about Mrs. Laurel? She had a chance to stop this all to start with, since Damon tried to tell her what was going on a long time ago...
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Iphigenia's Blame
[ since she. may as well contribute actual assistance? ]
Does anyone have anything in particular to say about her? She killed her mother, obviously.
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Mrs. Hecate's Blame Part Two
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Canis's Identity Theories
...The hint that the cat gave me is that Canis was a callous person, and that the one he's meant to represent has already gone once before.
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...What's our list of everyone who has gone before, anyway? Ema, Klavier, Mai, Maya, Norway, Ritsu, Serena, Yuyuko?
[ Meanwhile Athena, Harriet, Iceland, Kaoru, Malik, and Ty Lee haven't gone. ]
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Mrs. Laurel's Identity
He was surprised we didn't know who it was.
So...whoever thinks they could be Mrs. Laurel, hands up. Or anyone who thinks they know who it is.
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But there's no reason why anyone else here would know about that case, and he was actually guilty in the end. [And also Klavier does not feel remotely bad about it.]
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Iphigenia's Blame: Part II
I'm guessing it was "so scared she forgot until her talk with Mrs Laurel" [ which predictably Norway reminded her of after
the tag was upshe'd prepared the blame summary and she hadn't included it ], unless anyone else thinks it could be something else?no subject
[Just going to awkwardly pipe up here.]
I think maybe she just didn't want to believe something like that was true.
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Mrs. Hecate's Identity
We're looking for someone who came here with someone else, I think--someone who's good friends with whoever they showed up with.
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[ as opposed to best friends, dating (?), and brothers. ]
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RE: Hint
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[ She glances around. ]
What do you all think?
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Hint/Summary
[He dismissively waves a hand.] Which, speaking of... I have a hint. What do we still need to know?
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Unlock: Mai's Memories, this time with 100% more apathetic boredom
The memories are different from the last time, and they play out differently. The first several show Mai with her family, interacting. With her father overlooking a city where all of the citizens are… zombies and ditching, apparently, and Mai not showing any emotion. Her mother, crying over Mai's missing baby brother and Mai doing nothing more than handing her a tissue and pouting boredly. Little moments where someone ought to show more feeling, or passion, but to no one's surprise Mai is her usual deadpan, apathetic self.
Then the memories change to what seem to be the chasing of several people, alongside Ty Lee and Princess Azula. A few fights with other young teens, Mai always throwing knives (one time directed right at a girl's face but a board blocks them) and… well, losing against the other kids. The fights are always hard, and they don’t ever go down easily - except once, when Mai stares at a young blind girl who enters what seems to be a throne room, and says just take the stupid bear as Ty Lee’s hands and feet are trapped in stone by the other girl. Mai’s left untrapped, and sits on the steps as the blind girl takes away the bear Ty Lee had been speaking to previously. But the other fights seem to be more evenly matched, even though they never catch the bald boy and his compatriots.
At one point she’s thrown into a river with Ty Lee, and the two climb out, drenched. Ty Lee squeezes water from her braid, looking over to make some comment as Mai sighs, sitting hunched over, her make up running down her face.
None of the scenes scream "murdered a kid in cold blood", but it's clear that she's incredibly apathetic even at home and at her best when fighting although she is not passionate about it (or psychotic…). It’s a different story from her previous memories, which had shown actual passion and emotion, for Zuko, for her friends. Then it's over. ]
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If it wasn't you before, it probably isn't you now. Right?
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Unlock: Yuyuko Saigyouji's memories
What unfolds before everyone is the same setting they've seen for the past two weeks--but a little over a week before. Youmu stands beside her own cabinet, with Yuyuko hovering nearby.
'Isn't it funny...the barrier ended up being me all along,' she says, her face obscured from view.
Once that conversation ends, the scene shifts to a day or two later, with Yuyuko looking incredibly distraught.
'She doesn't...I just...I can't lose her.'
'Youki would have been proud of you.'
'But what is there to be done, now...? I can't even sense the spirits of the others. It's...almost as if they never existed.'
Overall, it does become apparent that Yuyuko was losing steam in defending Youmu, ending in her inability to refute the few arguments thrown at her, breaking down in tears.
It then fades, leaving her looking curiously at the cabinet. ]
Pathos gets me nowhere, apparently.
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[He frowns a bit at that. Didn't Yuyuko have anything else to feel guilt over?]
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Unlock: Athena Cykes' Memory; blood
It's clear right away that the memories in this cabinet are a little vague. The memories start out focused on a little girl, in some kind of laboratory. It's fairly sterile and tidy, and full of machinery. The laboratory is filled with machinery parts, and decorated with Japanese art, including a mask and a katana hanging on the wall. The little girl is playing with a cute robot, putting bandages on her arm. She seems very cautious and gentle about it.
The door to the lab opens, and a woman comes in. She makes Athena put on some extremely heavy looking headphones, even though Athena is crying and protesting that it hurts. With the headphones on, Athena seems much more subdued.
There are some other memories in there, too - watching her mother wearing a blue jacket repair the robot on the operating table, a few images of the girl at school or out in public breaking down and clutching her hands to her ears in obvious pain, a young man with some kind of samurai persona visiting the woman and taking time to greet the little girl. But it's all very vague, and then it begins to get worse.
The memory suddenly shifts to an image of the little girl standing in a room filled with blood. Whatever she's seeing, it can't be real - the room looks somewhat like the robotics lab, but it is huge, and empty of most of the details - the outlines of large machines can be made out, and somewhere the Japanese mask seems to be leering down, especially sinister, but otherwise, the walls and floors of the room are simply blood. She is also covered in blood, and staring, her expression blank. She can see the vague silhouette of a person in the room, wearing a blue jacket, and the katana is lying on the floor nearby. She picks up the katana and stabs. It goes straight into the person, and blood comes pouring out, running down Athena's hand. She looks down and sees that the body is her mother's.
The memory starts to seem a little more clear at this point. Athena is standing next to her mother's body at the robot repair station. The young man from earlier suddenly comes in through the door. She turns and gives him an incredibly creepy smile, and says "Something's wrong with mommy, so I'm taking her apart to fix her!" The man looks absolutely horrified. The memory goes vague again, showing a moment of Athena, covered in blood, being carried out of the room by the man, and then her waking up much later, in a different part of the museum, clean of blood and seeming to be really dazed.
The memory then opens on a courtroom, but it seems unrealistically cavernous inside. Although there are people packed in the courtroom, details are missing - the crowd in the back is shapeless and hard to make out. There are two men in suits at the prosecutor's bench and defense bench respectively, but they seem unrealistically generic, and their faces are blurred, as is the face of the judge. In fact, the only people who can be made out are Athena at the witness stand and the young man in the defendant's chair.
Athena is crying, and asking the court to please listen to her, but it's clear that no one takes her seriously. There's nothing unkind about it; it's just that all she's doing is crying and saying that they need to "listen to Simon's heart, his heart is crying out that he's innocent," and there isn't much basis for defense there. The judge bangs his gavel and the man in the defendant's chair is taken away while the little girl sobs and begs them to just listen to her.
The memory shifts again, this time to the same courtroom. Athena is there at the defense bench with another Apollo, and seems extremely nervous. A man in handcuffs is led into the courtroom by guards. He's the same man from the earlier memories, although he looks much older and has a harder edge to him. Later in the trial, Simon turns his back to her and says "Listen, missy. The person you'd like to save more than anyone else in the world? I'd be willing to wager that your defense isn't what they desire." Athena objects passionately, protesting she became a lawyer for this, but Simon responds, "the courts are not the play yards of little children dressed as lawyers. So before you break your back in failure…run along home and grow up!" Athena looks angry and a little defeated, but resolves not to give up.]
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Unlock: Harriet's Cabinet!? Her bad taste in friends.
"OWOWOWOWOWOWOW-! BASTARD! Don't get carried away!" he yells at the man, and the woman with purple hair snickers as the party begins to move, carrying him off. "Why, that's a perfect way for you to travel with us, you bloody tosser."
"SHUT THE HELL UP!" he yells back, to which she replies with a very mature "Make me."
Seeming to resign himself more as he's being carried, he taunts the woman. "Maybe next time... Besides, I've shut you up before. You talk pretty big for a woman with such a vulnerable mind - and such boring habits. What the hell is the point of decorating your goddamn nails with roses?"
Harriet instantly remembers the night before - as she was talking and doing her manicure for her, she thought that her friend seemed strange. Harriet feels a surge of rage, screaming at him in indignation. "Fuck! I knew you weren't Elly! Ooh, you dirty bastard!!"
The girls both yell at him for a while, and eventually the other girl identified as 'Elly' swings a punch right at his face - in metal gloves, which seems to break his nose. The man flinches in pain, and lets his head hang. "Honestly... like my host isn't going to be crying enough when he wakes up."
The man with tri-colored hair, wearing the crown of a King, demands an explanation. The hostage chuckles. "You people... heheh... The boy these two girls met was not just an act. Ryou Bakura is just a vessel... The reason I was able to take the Rod back from you is because I have no body of my own. Even if this body dies, I can just take another! Just like I borrowed Eleanor's earlier."
Harriet stops in her tracks, completely disgusted. In that moment after hearing that, all she wants to find a way to punch him right in his soul. Instead, all she can do is mutter, "You son of a bitch..."
"Bakura" just smiles. "Oy, oy... Immortality's got its price, you know? Don't tell me your morals are too high for you to see the benefits. You power-hungry people..." The scene twists and fades, taking Harriet's anger and disgust away with it.
Beginning in its place is another collection of memories. Harriet and Malik are on what could be a rooftop, although at the moment it is barely recognizable - its surface, the ground below them, has been temporarily placed with a grid of magical miniature terrain, such as mountains and meadows. In the sky above and around them, strange golden circles have materialized all around, with an open eye at each of their centers. They are in the middle of a duel, and the instructive way Harriet speaks to Malik it seems that they are training. They are both wearing elaborate armor, and summoning live monsters from cards they hold in their hands. She duels hard, but after he manages to pull out a win, she congratulates him and tells him his monster was "promoted", that he's one step closer to summoning "Ra." Malik is pleased to hear this, and they part ways. Harriet is feeling self confident - the training isn't just bringing him close to Ra, it's bringing her toward her own goals as well.
She opens the door to her dormitory, and her friend the King is waiting for her, looking incredibly stern as he summons his monster to block her from leaving. He demands an explanation for all the disappearances, all the different decks she's been building. Harriet looks guilty, but she's been preparing to confess to training Malik for some time. Before she can, though, her body subtly freezes and Malik's voice appears in her mind, urging her not to tell. She is alarmed and suspicious - how could he have known at that exact moment to do so? As the King looks on dumbfounded, she begins mentally needling him, and Malik is eventually forced to reveal that he placed a "soul fragment" inside of her - a piece of himself that can spy on her and control her from a distance. She snaps back that if he even thinks of stopping her, she'll quit the training and he will never escape from that school. He knows when to quit, so she's alone in her mind again. She comes clean to the confused and afraid King, who is hurt, but moreover, worried about her. Malik was their enemy, and she shouldn't trust him. But even though she's furious with Malik, Harriet doesn't care who she has to help. She doesn't even care who he hurts, as long as it's not her friends, whom she's confident in her own ability to protect. The fact of the matter is, his power is her best shot at escape, and her old friends simply aren't trying hard enough - they've gotten too attached to the people there, and she can no longer rely on them. Her impatience with going from one cage to another is too unbearable. The memory swirls out again with that overwhelming feeling.
It opens again to the side of a cliff - Malik is there, and so is Bakura. It is much later - the end of Malik's training, and the day of their planned escape. They are all in such high spirits, that Harriet is even giving Bakura the time of day, joking around with him. Malik gets tired of their shenanigans, though, and donning the armor from before, gets to work summoning. Harriet and Bakura put on some cool shades. Malik eventually calls forth Ra, an enormous winged dragon that shines like the sun, and orders it to attack a point in the distance. The fire is so intense, Harriet feels like she might burn up even from her safe place on the hill. But she and Bakura soon see that the fire is reflecting off a barrier around the Campus. Even though Ra was supposed to be a God, it couldn't destroy it. Malik is devastated when Ra eventually disappears on its own, and Harriet and Bakura do their awkward best to cheer him up. Bakura suggests that they can continue meeting each other even still. But from Harriet and Malik's attitudes, it's clear that they are feeling incredibly done with each other after their work went to naught. Harriet thinks that maybe she'll just go back to spending time with her real friends. The scene fades away once again.
It should have ended there. But it didn't. Harriet wakes up in her dorm to the light of the sun, but looking at the clock it is nowhere near sunrise. She opens the window to see Ra in the distance, turning its flames on the barrier in futility. Agitated at first, her feelings turn into a deep sadness - she doesn't want to, but she sympathizes too much with this. Putting on light clothes, she goes all the way out to the cliff to meet him again.
They never stop meeting after that. It happens again and again - he wakes her up with his awful obnoxious dragon sunlight, and she ventures out to scold him. They go back to school together and get tipsy in the headmaster's office. Most of it is just chatting and drowning their sorrows, but sometimes, not often, they even make out in there. And during the day, things are changing too. Ever since the escape attempt, Bakura's taken more interest in Harriet as a friend of Malik's, and she's accepted his presence for the same reason. They begin talking more whenever they run into each other.
The speeding memories finally stop in a courtyard. Bakura is explaining to Harriet about a game called Monster World, which he's invited her to play - all together with Malik and even his host, that innocent boy that she has actually seen so little of, but whenever her relationship with Malik and Bakura strengthens, she feels she has betrayed. This time, though, she barely thinks about it. She's just chatting happily about the game.
"This game is a favorite of yours, is it?" She asks Bakura.
He replies back, "It's the first game I learned about from the modern era. You could say it holds a special place in my heart." That last bit is just a tiny bit sarcastic. "If there was one thing I could claim to have no regrets about, it would be games. They're supposed to be little more than tools, but I always have fun with them even so. "
Harriet pauses as she stares at him strangely. "What are you talking about? It's obvious that games should be fun."
Bakura chuckles. "Games are the tools of our vengeance, Harriet. We dark duelists fight by playing games. After all, most games originated as a way of playing 'war'. We don't usually play for fun. When a dark duelist plays a game... it's usually with someone's life at stake. But even so, I find them too enjoyable to just play for stakes. It's just that I rarely get to play them for fun alone."
"Hmm. It's not like I'm unaware of that, but it's still backwards logic if you ask me." Harriet waves her hand around absently. "I'd ask why you didn't just ask someone then, but I imagine it's difficult to get someone to accept an invitation for fun once word's gotten around that you mainly play games to the death. Unless you're me, apparently. But look at me, I'm clearly nuts."
"Idiot..." He straightens up, fixing her with a stern glare. "Your fate was sealed the moment you became close to Malik. You're no longer capable of being targeted by me."
This time, Harriet chuckles. Some would say that becoming close to Malik is in fact the thing that makes her nuts. In fact, she tells herself that all the time. But the fact that he went out of the way to correct her on that is charming to her. "You're giving me such a firm look. Did it bother you to hear me say that?"
Bakura gets flustered at that. "What?! I'm telling you not to assume the wrong thing! I didn't say it out of any sort of worry for your well-being! I just didn't want you to be misinformed and jump to weird conclusions! It'd be awkward if you started being wary of me right when we got you to agree to play with us!"
The Rose Duelist stares at him incredulously. "'Started' being wary of you? Bakura, please. Do you think I forget about all that shit until you remind me of it? Wariness was my default state when it came to dealing with you. And for many highly justified reasons! At first, it was weird even talking to you."
And she does remember. She could never forget how the face that she's looking into right now is not his real face, or the creepy feeling that brought. But she's gotten used to that feeling, terrifyingly so. Although she never wanted to, she's beginning to feel that this spirit is her friend.
"You should have realized from how readily I accepted your invitation to begin with... but what's really started is me being able to move past that. Even if I still make a joke or two about it... which is what that was, incidentally. I was just kidding, you bloody moron! "
She bumps her shoulder against his, smirking up at him. This is a normal conversation. She's having fun. But the self doubt that she felt... of course, it was never a joke. It was always there, beneath the surface. What happened to her, in these few months? That burning rage, the desire to protect the boy - was it okay for it to have subsided this much? She's not just betraying him. She's betraying herself. ]
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lost items
Excuse me? I just remembered--I had been planning on asking a few days ago, but it seems my memory failed me. If anyone is interested in sharing information on what they have 'lost' by coming to this space, I would like to compile a list. We have yet to figure out what, precisely, this place is or who the cat might be, so, er, at least a few of us should probably get on that.
[ a pause ] Based on my own loss and Youmu's loss, I believe it can either be a physical item or an ability. One of you mentioned a memory as well, I believe?
[ she uncaps one of the markers, and writes down her own name and Youmu's. Under Youmu's, she notes "Hakurouken (sword)" and under her own "inviting death." ]
Of course, this is optional, but the more information the better. If anyone knows the lost items of any of our deceased as well, please let me know.
Re: lost items
[ The other people whose losses she knows are in the room and can speak for themselves, but...
As long as she knows one or two of the dead's losses, may as well speak up. ]
What does "inviting death" mean, though?
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1/2
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HOLD IT! [And he'll go ahead and slam his fists onto a convenient table because hey, if he's going to act like a defense attorney, he might as well commit all the way.]
After examining every angle of this case thoroughly, the defense is now prepared to present a new theory - that whoever Athena stabbed that night, it was not her mother!
There are simply too many contradictions for the current version of events to make sense! First of all, although she clearly remembers stabbing someone wearing her mother's jacket, that jacket was then nowhere to be found in the scene directly afterwards when her mother was lying at the repair station. Nor could it have fallen off after the stabbing - her mother's jacket is currently on display at the space station and completely free of bloodstains. The only explanation left is that it fell off during the attack but before the actual stabbing, but as you will soon learn, this is impossible.
Furthermore, there's the matter of the katana itself. Athena testified even before she opened her cabinet that she remembered blood spilling over her hands at the moment of the stabbing. But if that's the case, why is the katana in the memory not completely covered in blood? In the memory, the blood only reaches halfway up the blade - the hilt is completely clean! And before anyone tries to claim that the memory itself must be wrong, we have further proof that Athena absolutely could not have used the sword to stab her mother that night.
[dramatically points] The defense would like to call Herr Kaoru Nagumo to the stand!
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Oh!
You don't think that can't just be a flaw in my memory?
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Voting
All right! We're getting down to the wire. Let's talk about voting, and how to handle this!
Thanks to everyone, I think we can do this. I don't think, if you vote for no one, I'll wind up causing trouble for everyone. But let's be sure.
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VOTING RESULTS
At that moment, Athena Cykes drops to the ground, clutching her chest and going into cardiac arrest. However, no shadows emerge and she doesn't die from it. After a few minutes, the symptoms fade.
The cat watches her carefully before suddenly tensing and pouncing on something invisible nearby. He struggles with this invisible being for a few minutes, clawing and getting tossed into the air, before he sinks his fangs into what looks like empty air and shakes his head forcefully. After a few seconds, he relaxes and slinks back up the box, licking his paw and looking a bit smug.
Two scratch marks remain on the wall.]
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It worked. My, what amazing people these 'lawyers' are.
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Aftermath
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